[R] Integer vs numeric

[Henrik Bengtsson]

x[1:n]

/H

On Jan 29, 2008 5:07 AM,  <cgenolin at u-paris10.fr> wrote:
> Seems strange to me to define an operator relatively to a very special case.
> I have to admit that I do not use 1:1e7 every day :-)
>
> Wouldn't it be more appropriate to define a a:b operator numeric (that
> is preserving the initial class of a and b) and in specific case that
> need optimization, changing the type?
>
> for i in as.integer(1:1e7)
>
> That might appears as a minor point, but when using S4, for what I
> know, if you define a class that can take either 1:3 or c(1,3,4), one
> is integer, the other numeric, one of those will not be accepted by the
> class...
>
> Christophe
>
>
>
> > On 28-Jan-08 22:40:02, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> >> [...]
> >> AFAIR, space is/was more of an issue. If you do something like
> >>
> >> for i in 1:1e7
> >>     some.silly.simulation()
> >>
> >> then you have 40 MB sitting there doing nothing, and 80 MB if
> >> it had been floating point.
> >
> > Hmmm ... there's something to be said for good old
> >
> >  for(i=1,i<=1e7,i++){....}
> >
> > As pointed out in ?"for", when you do
> >
> >  for(i in X){...}  #(e.g. X=(1:1e7))
> >
> > the object X is created (or is already there) in full
> > at the start and sits there, as you say doing nothing,
> > until you end the loop. Whereas the C code just keeps
> > track of i and of the condition.
> >
> > At least on a couple of my machines (64MB and 184MB RAM)
> > knocking out 40MB would inflict severe trauma! Let alone 80MB.
> > Mind you, the little one is no longer allowed to play with
> > big boys like R, though the other one is still used for
> > moderate-sized games.
> >
> > Would there be much of a time penalty in implementing
> > a 'for' loop, C-style, as
> >
> >  i<-1
> >  while(i<=1e7){
> >    ...
> >    i<-i+1
> >  }
> >
> > ??
> >
> > It looks as though there might be:
> >
> >  system.time(for(i in (1:1e7)) x<-cos(3) )
> >  #[1] 13.521  0.132 13.355  0.000  0.000
> >  system.time({i<-1;while(i<=1e7){x<-cos(3);i<-i+1}})
> >  #[1] 38.270  0.076 37.629  0.000  0.000
> >
> > which suggests that the latter is about 3 times as slow.
> > (And no, this wasn't done on either of my puny babes).
> >
> > (And this isn't the first time I've wished for an R
> > implementation of "++" as a CPU-level incrementation,
> > as opposed to the R-arithmetic implementation which
> > treats "adding 1 to a variable" as a full-dress
> > arithmetic parade!
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Ted.
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk>
> > Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> > Date: 28-Jan-08                                       Time: 23:34:52
> > ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
> >
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Ce message a ete envoye par IMP, grace a l'Universite Paris 10 Nanterre
>
>
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