[R] how about a "<p-" operator?

[John Fox]

Dear Carl,

I think that the following does what you want:

> `%<-%` <- function(e1, e2){
+   e1 <- deparse(substitute(e1))
+   env <- parent.frame()
+   assign(e1, e2, envir=env)
+   e2
+ }

> x %<-% 10
[1] 10

> x
[1] 10

But, as has been pointed out, it's probably easier just to parenthesize the
usual assignment command.

Regards,
 John

--------------------------------
John Fox
Senator William McMaster
  Professor of Social Statistics
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox




> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
> On Behalf Of Carl Witthoft
> Sent: March-30-11 7:00 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] how about a "<p-" operator?
> 
> I was cursing Matlab again today (what else is new) because the default
> action for every Matlab command is to spew the result to the console, and
> one must remember to put that darn ";"  at the end of every line.
> 
> So I just wondered:  was there ever a discussion as to providing some
> modified version of the "<-" and "->" operators in R to do the reverse?
>   That is, since R does not print the values of a command to the console,
> what if there were  an operator such that
> 
> 
>   newobject <p- somefunction()
> 
> would do the same as
> 
> print(newobject <- somefunction())
> 
> 
> Any thoughts?
> Carl
> 
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