[R] write() gotcha

Brian Ripley ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Mon Dec 18 10:27:49 CET 2006


On Mon, 18 Dec 2006, Robin Hankin wrote:

>
> On 18 Dec 2006, at 08:50, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 18 Dec 2006, Robin Hankin wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi
>>> 
>>> I used write() the other day to save some results.
>> 
>> Why not save()?  It is the only way to preserve the results exactly.
>> 
>>> It seems that write() does not record the full precision of
>>> the objects being written:
>>> 
>>> [snip]
>>> 
>>> What's going on here?
>> 
>> See ?cat, for which write is a wrapper.
>> 
>> 
>
>
>
> Professor Ripley
>
> Thanks for this.  I'll use save() instead.
>
> Also, could we clarify this issue in the write() manpage?  Although its
> behaviour is  clear from the code, I'm sure other R users would
> appreciate a hint or a warning that precision might be lost.  It cost
> me a few hours of worry last night!

Already done (via a xref to cat for the format used)!

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595



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