[R] bug in rle?

[Bert Gunter]

Thank you Brian for your clear and informative answer. I was
(obviously!) unaware of this and appreciate the response.

Best,
Bert

Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
(650) 467-7374

"Data is not information. Information is not knowledge. And knowledge
is certainly not wisdom."
H. Gilbert Welch




On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 08/01/2014 16:23, Bert Gunter wrote:
>>
>> Is the following a bug?
>> ##(R version 3.0.2 (2013-09-25)
>> ## Platform: i386-w64-mingw32/i386 (32-bit))
>>
>>
>> d <- data.frame(a=rep(letters[1:3],4:6))
>>   rle(d$a)
>> ##Error in rle(d$a) : 'x' must be an atomic vector
>>
>> is.atomic(d$a)
>> ##[1] TRUE
>
>
> But
>
>> is.vector(d$a)
> [1] FALSE
>
> The discrepancies in what a 'vector' is in R are very long standing, but a
> factor is not a vector.
>
>
>> rle(c(d$a))
>
>
> That loses the class and other attributes, giving a vector.
>
>> ## Run Length Encoding
>> ##  lengths: int [1:3] 4 5 6
>>   ##  values : int [1:3] 1 2 3
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Bert
>>
>> Bert Gunter
>> Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
>> (650) 467-7374
>
>
>
> --
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595