[R] for loop question Documentation and its application for calculating euclidean distance on MDS ordination axis scores

[Gabor Grothendieck]

One must write ?"for" presumably since for is a reserved word in R.

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 9:39 AM, stephen sefick <ssefick at gmail.com> wrote:
> ?for doesn't return anything help.search("for") doesn't return anything-
> Is the for loop so prevelant in computer programing that the
> documentation is implicit or is R paradigm to discourage the use of
> the for loop.
>
> I will post data probably tonight, but here is my problem.  I have
> preformed an MDS on a set of data.  I have the scores of the four axes
> that
> are the optimal solution.  I want to calculate the euclidean distance
> between time steps of the ordination.  My thought is to use a for
> loop-
> calculate distance march to april then calculate the distance from
> april to may  ...  Is this the proper way of going about this
>
>              axis1    axis2    axis3      axis4
> march            3         4          6            3
> april               5         7          8            5
> may               7         3         1             9
> .....
>
> thanks
>
> Stephen
>
> The data is at home and I will post it once I have fooled around with
> the for loop - if I can not figure it out, but this is the general set
> up of the problem
> --
> Stephen Sefick
> Research Scientist
> Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy
>
> Let's not spend our time and resources thinking about things that are
> so little or so large that all they really do for us is puff us up and
> make us feel like gods.  We are mammals, and have not exhausted the
> annoying little problems of being mammals.
>
>                                                                -K. Mullis
>
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