[R] Applying function to lots of separate data sets

[Duncan Murdoch]

On Mon, 6 Sep 2004 01:14:40 +0100 (BST), Laura Quinn
<laura at env.leeds.ac.uk> wrote:

>I have a total mental block and can't find my way around this seemingly
>simple problem:
>
>I have created a function such that:
>
>my_answer_1=myfuntion(my_input_1)
>
>I am wanting to perform this calculation over a large number of datasets,
>but am having real difficulty calling and assigning - i think the problem
>les in the fact that I need to paste for call and assign.
>
>this is my best attempt so far..I can't seem to find a way around this...
>
>for(i in 1:50)
>eval(parse(text=paste("my_answer_",i,
>    "<-myfunction(text=paste("my_input_",i,sep=""))",sep="")))
>
>can someone please point out where i am going wrong?

Using paste() to construct variable names is overdone.  It's much
better to put all of your data into a list in one object, then just
use lapply() to apply a function to each element of the list.

For examples, see ?lapply.

Duncan Murdoch