[R] min(NA,"bla") != min("bla", NA)

[Don McKenzie]

I had the same outcome as Sarah on mac OSX 10.8. R 3.0.1

On Sep 26, 2013, at 3:03 PM, Sarah Goslee <sarah.goslee at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry Rolf, but it's not just Windows (though I completely understand
> the urge to blame it):
> 
> R> sessionInfo()
> R version 3.0.1 (2013-05-16)
> Platform: x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu (64-bit)
> 
> locale:
> [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
> [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
> [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
> [7] LC_PAPER=C                 LC_NAME=C
> [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> 
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] cairoDevice_2.19
> 
> 
> R> min(NA,"bla")
> [1] NA
> R> min("bla",NA)
> [1] "bla"
> R> min(c(NA,"bla"))
> [1] NA
> R> min(c("bla",NA))
> [1] NA
> 
> Sarah
> 
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 5:32 PM, Rolf Turner <rolf.turner at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>> 
>> Just to add to the confusion, on my system I get NA --- which I understand
>> to be
>> the correct value --- from all of min(NA,"bla"), min("bla",NA),
>> min(c(NA,"bla")), and
>> min(c("bla",NA)).  When I append the argument na.rm=TRUE to each of the
>> calls,
>> I get "bla" from each.
>> 
>> So, no bug in my system.
>> 
>>> sessionInfo()
>>> R version 3.0.1 (2013-05-16)
>>> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>>> 
>>> locale:
>>> [1] C
>>> 
>>> attached base packages:
>>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods base
>>> 
>>> other attached packages:
>>> [1] misc_0.0-15
>>> 
>>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>>> [1] tools_3.0.1
>> 
>> 
>> Are the rest of youse guys using Windoze?  No wonder ....
>> 
>>    cheers,
>> 
>>    Rolf
>> 
>> On 09/27/13 05:55, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 26/09/2013 11:07 AM, Magnus Thor Torfason wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Just ran these two statements:
>>>> 
>>>>> min(NA,"bla")
>>>> [1] NA
>>>> 
>>>>> min("bla", NA)
>>>> [1] "bla"
>>>> 
>>>> And then reran with explicit na.rm=FALSE
>>>> 
>>>>> min(NA,"bla", na.rm=FALSE)
>>>> [1] NA
>>>> 
>>>>> min("bla", NA, na.rm=FALSE)
>>>> [1] "bla"
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This should be all fixed now (at least for min and max; it's possible some
>>> of the other summary functions still have oddities). It's in R-devel, soon
>>> r-patched.  All of the above examples should now give a character NA.
>>> 
>>> Duncan Murdoch
>>> 
> 
> -- 
> Sarah Goslee
> http://www.functionaldiversity.org
> 
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Don McKenzie
Research Ecologist 
Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab 
US Forest Service 
 

Affiliate Professor 
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences 
University of Washington 
 

phone: 206-732-7824 
dmck at uw.edu