[R] What does the "<<-" operator mean?

[Thomas Lumley]

On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Rolf Turner <rolf.turner at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
> On 22/04/11 07:08, Cliff Clive wrote:
>>
>> I've been reading some code from an example in a blog post (
>> http://www.maxdama.com/ here ) and I came across an operator that I hadn't
>> seen before.  The author used a<<- operator to update a variable, like so:
>>
>> ecov_xy<<- ecov_xy+decay*(x[t]*y[t]-ecov_xy)
>>
>> At first I thought it was a mistake and tried replacing it with the
>> usual<-
>> assignment operator, but I didn't get the same results.  So what does the
>> double arrow<<- operator do?
>
> Install the "fortunes" (if you haven't already) and see:
>
>    fortune("<<-")
>

But note that in the quote Bill says "R/S" and it's dated 2001, so
it's primarily based on experience with S.  In S you don't have
enclosing environments so only the Evil and Wrong uses of
superassignment are possible.

    -thomas

-- 
Thomas Lumley
Professor of Biostatistics
University of Auckland