[R] Variable passed to function not used in function in select=... in subset

[Wacek Kusnierczyk]

Kenn Konstabel wrote:
>
> On the other hand, while there may be ground to complain,  it may be easier
> to make your own version of subset.data.frame and  advertise it to everyone:
>
>   

sure, but:

a) it may actually increase the mess, and reduce portability
b) is still vulnerable to the idiosyncrasies of the functions you use to
develop your own function.

to b), that was the original case; the user wanted to implement a
function that did print-names-subset, and he got caught by subset.


it should be preferred to have a clean and consistent protocol for how
functions treat their arguments, rather than to multiply implementations
of the same operation to provide versions that differ in nitty-gritty
details just because the original does something odd.

vQ