[R] Variable scope in functions - best practices

[Noah Silverman]

Hi,

I'm working on coding some more complex things in R and have need to break much of the logic into functions.

I have several "global" variables that I want to change with a given function.  (The variable has a different value after the function is called.)

In other languages like C, this is simple.  However, in R, if a function changes a variable, that change only occurs in the frame of that function.  So, when the function returns, the old value is still there. 

Of course, I could just have the function return the value, but some functions change 5-6 variables.  So, I could have a function return a list, and then parse that list every time, but that seems like an excessive amount of overhead.  (Especially as some functions may be called many many times.)

How have some of you handled this?  Is there a "best practices" way?

Thanks!

--
Noah Silverman
UCLA Department of Statistics
8117 Math Sciences Building
Los Angeles, CA 90095