[Rd] order of operations
Duncan Murdoch
murdoch@dunc@n @end|ng |rom gm@||@com
Sat Aug 28 10:48:51 CEST 2021
On 28/08/2021 3:44 a.m., GILLIBERT, Andre wrote:
> For the discussion:
>
> > Yes, and were it not for 0 * NA == NA, you might skip evaluation of y
> if x evaluates to zero.
>
>
> With the same idea, NA * (alpha <- 6) could skip the assignment.
No, it can't, because until it evaluates the assignment it doesn't know
if it has a class that does strange things with *:
> `*.foo` <- function(x, y) 42
> NA*(alpha <- structure("bar", class="foo"))
[1] 42
> I do not think that, on the short term, R would do that thing, but who
> knows in the future!
As I posted yesterday, this is documented behaviour, so one would hope
for clear notice if it is going to change.
Duncan Murdoch
>
>
> As of R 4.1, typeof(`*`) actually returns "builtin" rather than
> "special", meaning that all its arguments are evaluated.
>
>
> --
>
> Sincerely
>
> Andre GILLIBERT
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *De :* R-devel <r-devel-bounces using r-project.org> de la part de peter
> dalgaard <pdalgd using gmail.com>
> *Envoyé :* samedi 28 août 2021 09:26:03
> *À :* Duncan Murdoch
> *Cc :* r-devel using r-project.org
> *Objet :* Re: [Rd] order of operations
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>
> Yes, and were it not for 0 * NA == NA, you might skip evaluation of y if
> x evaluates to zero. In Andre Gillibert's example:
>
> 1 | (alpha<-6)
>
> there really is no reason to evaluate the assignment since (1 | any) is
> always TRUE. Notwithstanding method dispatch, that is.
>
> With general function calls, all bets are off. Even f(x <- 1) might
> decide not to evaluate its argument.
>
> - pd
>
>> On 27 Aug 2021, at 21:14 , Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 27/08/2021 3:06 p.m., Enrico Schumann wrote:
>>> On Fri, 27 Aug 2021, Gabor Grothendieck writes:
>>>> Are there any guarantees of whether x will equal 1 or 2 after this is run?
>>>>
>>>> (x <- 1) * (x <- 2)
>>>> ## [1] 2
>>>> x
>>>> ## [1] 2
>>> At least the "R Language Definition" [1] says
>>> "The exponentiation operator ‘^’ and the left
>>> assignment plus minus operators ‘<- - = <<-’
>>> group right to left, all other operators group
>>> left to right. That is [...] 1 - 1 - 1 is -1"
>>> which would imply 2.
>>
>> I think this is a different issue. There's only one operator in question (the "*"). The question is whether x*y evaluates x first or y first (and I believe the answer is that there are no guarantees). I'm fairly sure both are guaranteed to be evaluated, under the rules for group generics listed in ?groupGeneric, but I'm
> not certain the guarantee is honoured in all cases.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
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