[R] Unexpected input in function

[Schryver, Jack C.]

Thank you for your responses. You helped me to see something right in front of me that I should have noticed quickly. I copy/pasted my script from MS Word instead of using a safer text editor. I did catch the funky double-quotes the MS Word uses, but I think it also sometimes substitutes a dash for a minus sign.

Jack

-----Original Message-----
From: ted at deb [mailto:ted at deb] On Behalf Of Ted Harding
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 4:56 PM
To: r-help at r-project.org
Cc: Schryver, Jack C.; Schryver, Jack C.; Sarah Goslee
Subject: Re: [R] Unexpected input in function

I think the most likely explanation is that something in
the input string has had the effect of inserting an invisible
"character" between the "-" and the "a" in "b-a", and a
possible suspect is pollution by UTF8: see the discussion at

http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/unexpected-input-in-rpart-td3168363.html

Or a character "copy&paste"d from an editor that uses a
non-ASCII encoding for its characters. See e.g.:

http://support.rstudio.org/help/discussions/problems/
386-error-unexpected-input-in

and:

http://www.mail-archive.com/r-help@r-project.org/msg71798.html


On 19-Mar-2012 Sarah Goslee wrote:
> I think you'll need to provide a reproducible example, because your
> code works for me:
> 
>> fsubt <- function(a) {
> + b <- 1:length(a)
> + b-a
> + }
>>
>>
>> fsubt(1:5)
> [1] 0 0 0 0 0
>>
>> fsubt(sample(1:10))
>  [1] -8 -6  1  1 -1  5  3  1  4  0
>>
>> fsubt(2)
> [1] -1
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:01 PM, Schryver, Jack C. <schryverjc at ornl.gov>
> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Although the following statements work individually in R, they produce an
>> error if placed inside a function as below:
>>
>> fsubt <- function(a) {
>> b <- 1:length(a)
>> b-a
>> }
>>
>> The error message is:
>>
>> Error: unexpected input in:
>> "b <- 1:length(a)
>> b-"
>>
>> Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jack
> 
> -- 
> Sarah Goslee
> http://www.functionaldiversity.org

-------------------------------------------------
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at wlandres.net>
Date: 19-Mar-2012  Time: 20:56:04
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