[R] Debugging R's code: boxplot.stats

[Matthew Walker]

Thank you Gabor for that explanation, I can now make a bit more sense of
R's behaviour!  When I edit boxplot.stats, a new version is copied to my
local workspace.  I have a few associated questions:

1. This has something to do with namespaces in R, and I know nothing
about them.  Can anyone point me to some online documentation that could
step me through the important points?  If that's not available (my
searching failed to bring up anything) can anyone give me a quick list
of functions that I could look up using help()?  

2. This question follows on from question (1): given that I have two
copies of boxplot.stats (in what I assume are different namespaces), how
can I specify a specific one to the function debug()?

3. How can I edit the original version of boxplot.stats without creating
a copy in my local workspace?

4. Is there a way that I can learn the status of the "debug flag" of a
specific function?

5. Finally, the function traceback() lists the call-stack.  How do I
know which one of the two "boxplot.stats" functions was called?

Thanks,

Matthew

On Fri, 2006-10-27 at 23:19 -0400, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> The edit operations does not change the boxplot.stats that you
> are debugging.  It creates a new boxplot.stats (i.e. now there
> are two) and the new one does not have debugging turned on.
> Try
> 
> getAnywhere("boxplot.stats")
> 
> and it finds two.  If you remove the one you just created using rm debugging
> reappears since you are now accessing the original one for which
> debugging is still on.  If you like you can turn debugging on in the
> new one.
> 
> On 10/27/06, Matthew Walker <m.g.walker at massey.ac.nz> wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I think I have found a minor issue with the R function "boxplot.stats".
> > But before I make such a rash comment, I'd like to check my facts by
> > fixing what I think is the problem.  However, why I try to do this, R
> > does not behave as I expect.  Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?
> >
> > If I use the command:
> > debug(boxplot.stats)
> > I am allowed to step through the code as normal.
> >
> > I then want to edit the function, so I type:
> > boxplot.stats <- edit(boxplot.stats)
> > and I make my changes.
> >
> > I can check my changes have been made by typing:
> > boxplot.stats
> > and the updated version appears on screen.
> >
> > But now when I come to test my changes, the "debug" functionality has
> > just up and disappeared; I can no longer step though the function as
> > normal.  Further to that, it appears that the change has somehow not
> > been registered, as exactly the same error occurs---although I cannot be
> > sure that it is occurring inside boxplot.stats.
> >
> > Does anyone have any tips, suggestions or comments?  I'd love to be able
> > to fix this.
> >
> > (For what it's worth I wish to change line 14 of boxplot.stats so that
> > it reads "if (any(out[nna],na.rm=TRUE))".)
> >
> >
> > Thank you for your thoughts,
> >
> > Matthew
> >
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