[R] Chaining multiple replacement functions in R

[Daniel Gabrieli]

This is what I came up with (to make the recursive function return the
position of the 'name' and still be able to chain the calls together).  I
am not sure if this is a great way to do it... but it seems to be
working...

rmatch.pos <- function(object, name, seq=NA, level=NULL){
  ##return the vector of integers corresponding to the first match
  ##of 'name' to a label in object or NULL if no match is found
    ###object: a list, likely deeply nested
    ##name: the name of the label to look for
    ##seq: starting point to search for 'name' in 'object' i.e. c(2,3,3)
    ##level: don't touch this; it keeps track of how deep the recursive
execution is
  ##can be chained together to reduce ambiguity or result:
    ##obj <- list(a=1, b=list(c=2, d=list(e=1, attr1="really?",
f=list(attr1 = "found me!"))))
    ##obj[[rmatch.pos(obj, "attr1", rmatch.pos(obj, "f"))]]

  if(is.null(seq)){
    #short circuit if NULL gets passed
    #when chaining, this forces the whole 'chain'
    #to NULL when any 'link' is NULL
    return(NULL)
  }
  if(is.null(level)){
    level <- length(na.omit(seq))
  }
  if(any(is.na(seq))){
    temp <- object
  }else{
    temp <- object[[seq]]
  }
  level <- level + 1
  pos <- match(name, names(temp))
  if(!is.na(pos)){
    seq[level] <- pos
    return(seq)
  }
  for(el in seq_along(temp)){
    if(class(temp[[el]]) == "list"){
      seq[level] <- el
      out <- Recall(object, name, seq, level)
      if(!is.null(out)){
        return(out)
      }
    }
  }
}


rmatch.pos(app, "ThirdKey")
rmatch.pos(app, "attr2")
#chaining example
rmatch.pos(app, "attr2", rmatch.pos(app, "FirstKey"))
rmatch.pos(app, "attr2", rmatch.pos(app, "SecondKey"))
rmatch.pos(app, "attr1", rmatch.pos(app, "ERROR"))
rmatch.pos(app, "ERROR", rmatch.pos(app, "attr1"))




On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Daniel Gabrieli <daniel.gabrieli at gmail.com>
wrote:

> That is really helpful.  I am trying to get the rmatch function to return
> the position of the 'name' instead of the value.  So rmatch(app, "FirsKey")
> would return c(3,3,1).  Then app[[c(3,3,1)]] <- 'new value' would be
> perfect.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 6:43 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 29/12/2014 4:41 PM, Daniel Gabrieli wrote:
>> > I cross posted this on Stack Overflow:
>> >
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27694466/chaining-multiple-replacement-functions-in-r
>> >
>> >
>> > I am using R to work with a large JS object (using the library
>> rjsonio). As
>> > such, I have a lot of nested lists, which are getting somewhat
>> cumbersome
>> > to work with. I have a simplified example below. I am trying to work
>> with
>> > this object by creating some form of ‘getter’ and ‘setter’ functions.
>> After
>> > looking around, I have found a pretty nice ‘getter’ function that
>> recurses
>> > through the object and returns the value for the first matching label.
>> This
>> > is especially great because it lends itself to chaining functions
>> together.
>> > However, I can not figure out a way to get the same effect for a
>> ‘setter’
>> > function. Any thoughts on how to create a ‘setter’ function that can be
>> > chained together in a similar fashion?
>>
>> I haven't worked through the details here so this might not work, but
>> the assignment function could add extra information saying which part of
>> the object was modified.  In the example below, "Firstkey" is
>> app[[c(3,3,1)]], so a function that modified it could attach c(3,3,1) as
>> an attribute, and later functions that wanted to do more things to it
>> could start looking there.
>>
>> I guess the tricky part would be getting rid of that attribute if you
>> didn't want to pass it along the chain, e.g. the final call shouldn't
>> return it.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
>> >
>> > #example, simplified, object
>> > app = list(
>> >   1,
>> >   2,
>> >   d=list(a=123,
>> >          b=456,
>> >          list(
>> >            FirstKey=list(attr1='good stuff', attr2=12345),
>> >            SecondKey=list(attr1='also good stuff', attr2=4321)
>> >            )
>> >          )
>> >   )
>> >
>> >
>> > #Return a function that returns the value
>> > #associated with first label that matches 'name'
>> > getByName <- function(name){
>> >   rmatch <- function(x) {
>> >     pos <- match(name, names(x))
>> >     if (!is.na(pos))
>> >       return(x[[pos]])
>> >     for (el in x) {
>> >       if (class(el) == "list") {
>> >         out <- Recall(el)
>> >         if (!is.null(out)) return(out)
>> >       }
>> >     }
>> >   }
>> >   rmatch
>> > }
>> >
>> > getFirstKey <- getByName("FirstKey")
>> > getAttr1 <- getByName("attr1")
>> > getAttr2 <- getByName("attr2")
>> >
>> > #I like that I can chain these functions together
>> > getAttr1(getFirstKey(app))
>> > getAttr2(getFirstKey(app))
>> >
>> > # I would like to be able to do something like this
>> > # But this won't work
>> > ###    getAttr1(getFirstKey(app)) <- 9876
>> >
>> > # This does work,,, but I loose the ability to chain functions together
>> > # Closure around a replacement function
>> > setterKeyAttr <- function(keyName, attr){
>> >   function(x, value){
>> >     x$d[[3]][[keyName]][[attr]] <- value
>> >     x
>> >   }
>> > }
>> >
>> > `setFirstKeyAttr2<-` <- setterKeyAttr("FirstKey", "attr2")
>> > setFirstKeyAttr2(app) <- 22222
>> > #check the answer is correct
>> > getAttr2(getFirstKey(app))
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > references:
>> >
>> >
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23124096/r-decorator-to-change-both-input-and-output
>> >
>> >
>> http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/How-to-get-a-specific-named-element-in-a-nested-list-td3037430.html
>> >
>> > http://adv-r.had.co.nz/Functions.html
>> >
>> >       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>> >
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>> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>> >
>>
>>
>

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