[R] Can body() return a function's body intact, in order, and as characters ready for editing?

[Kingsley G. Morse Jr.]

Is my understanding correct that the body()
function currently can't return a function's body
intact, in order, and as characters ready for
editing?

My testing and reading of body()'s help indicate
that it can not.

Here's what I'm seeing.

Consider pasting 

    1+

and a function containing

    x^2
    
together to get

    1+x^2

As you can see below, body() reports three
elements, out of order.

    > f<-function(x) x^2; b<-body(f); paste("1+",b, sep="")
    [1] "1+^" "1+x" "1+2

I realize that this might be worked around with
something like

    > f<-function(x) x^2; b<-do.call(paste,as.list(c(deparse(body(f)),sep=""))); paste("1+",b, sep="")
    [1] "1+x^2"

However, I'm asking a different question.

Is my understanding correct that body() can't
return a function's body intact, in order, and as
characters ready for editing?

Thanks,
Kingsley

> sessionInfo()
R version 2.12.1 (2010-12-16)
Platform: i486-pc-linux-gnu (32-bit)

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US       LC_NUMERIC=C         LC_TIME=en_US       
 [4] LC_COLLATE=en_US     LC_MONETARY=C        LC_MESSAGES=en_US   
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_US       LC_NAME=C            LC_ADDRESS=C        
[10] LC_TELEPHONE=C       LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US LC_IDENTIFICATION=C 

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
 [1] optimx_0.88        setRNG_2009.11-1   minqa_1.1.13       Rcpp_0.9.2        
 [5] Rvmmin_2011-2.11   Rcgmin_2011-2.10   ucminf_1.0-5       BB_2011.2-1       
 [9] quadprog_1.5-3     numDeriv_2010.11-1 rgp_0.2-3          snowfall_1.84     
[13] snow_0.3-3         rrules_0.1-0       emoa_0.4-3        

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tcltk_2.12.1 tools_2.12.1

> Sys.getlocale()
[1] "LC_CTYPE=en_US;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=en_US;LC_COLLATE=en_US;LC_MONETARY=C;LC_MESSAGES=en_US;LC_PAPER=en_US;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C"