[R] odd feature

[ivo welch]

Dear R wizards:

I just got stung by the ifelse() feature.

> a <- 10:15
> b <- 20:300
> test <- 1
> ifelse(test,a,b)
[1] 10

I had not realized that this was the default behavior---I had expected
10:15.  mea culpa.  however, I wonder whether it would make sense to
replace ifelse with a different semantic, where if test is a single
scalar, it means what a stupid user like me would imagine.

Aside, I like the flexibility of R, but I am not thrilled by all the
recycling rules.  I either mean I want a scalar or a vector of
equal/appropriate dimension.  I never want a recycle of a smaller
vector.  (I do often use a recycle of a scalar.)

regards,

/iaw