[R] some question about vector[-NULL]

[PO SU]

Tks, i think using logical index is a way, but to do that, i have to keep a vector as long as the original vector. that's, to exclude position 1 and 3 from 
a<-1:5
I have to let b<-c(F,T,F,T,T) and exec a[b], not a[-c(1,3)]. which c(1,3) is much shorter than b if a is a long vector. that's, b would be c(F,T,F,T,T,T,T,......,T)
I thought a way ,
 let d<-c(a,1) 
that d<-c(1,2,3,4,5,1)
and initialize the index vector   iv to length(d). that is iv<-6.
then, d[-iv] is always equal  a[- i ] ,  whether i is NULL or not. 
Because if i is NULL ,then iv is 6, if i is 2.then iv is c(2,6) and so on.......
 






--

PO SU
mail: desolator88 at 163.com 
Majored in Statistics from SJTU




At 2014-09-11 01:58:46, "Duncan Murdoch" <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
>On 10/09/2014 12:20 PM, William Dunlap wrote:
>> Can you make your example a bit more concrete?  E.g., is your 'index
>> vector' A an integer vector?  If so, integer(0), an integer vector
>> with no elements, would be a more reasonable return value than NULL,
>> an object of class NULL with length 0, for the 'not found' case and
>> you could check for that case by asking if length(A)==0.
>>
>> Show us typical inputs and expected outputs for your function (i.e.,
>> the problem you want to solve).
>
>I think the problem with integer(0) and NULL is the same:  a[-i] doesn't 
>act as expected (leaving out all the elements of i, i.e. nothing) if i 
>is either of those.  The solution is to use logical indexing, not 
>negative numerical indexing.
>
>Duncan Murdoch
>>
>> Bill Dunlap
>> TIBCO Software
>> wdunlap tibco.com
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 8:53 AM, PO SU <rhelpmaillist at 163.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Tks for your
>> >
>> > a <- list(ress = 1, res = NULL)
>> > And in my second question, let me explain it :
>> > Actually i have two vectors in global enviroment, called A and B .A is initialized to NULL which used to record some index in B.
>> > Then i would run a function F,  and each time, i would get a index value or NULL. that's,  D<-F(B). D would be NULL or  some index position in B.
>> > But in the function F, though input is B,  i would exclude the index value from  B recorded in A. That's :
>> > F<-function( B ) {
>> > B<-B[-A]
>> > some processing...
>> > res<-NULL or some new index not included in A
>> > return(res)
>> > }
>> > so in a loop,
>> > A<-NULL
>> > for( i in 1:100000) {
>> > D<-F(B)
>> > A<-c(A,D)
>> > }
>> > I never know whether D is a NULL or a different index  compared with indexes already recorded in A.
>> > Actually, A<-c(A,D) work well, i never worry about whether D is NULL or a real index, but in the function F,  B<-B[-A] won't work.
>> > so i hope that, e.g.
>> > a<-1:3
>> > a[-NULL] wouldn't trigger an error but return a.
>> > Because, if i wrote function like the following:
>> >
>> > F<-function( B ) {
>> > if( is.null(A))
>> > B<-B
>> > else
>> > B<-B[-A]
>> > some processing...
>> > res<-NULL or some new index not included in A
>> > return(res)
>> > }
>> > May be after 5 or 10 loops, A would already not NULL, so the added if ..else statement would be repeated in left  9999 loops which i would not like to see.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> > PO SU
>> > mail: desolator88 at 163.com
>> > Majored in Statistics from SJTU
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > At 2014-09-10 06:45:59, "Duncan Murdoch" <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>On 10/09/2014, 3:21 AM, PO SU wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> Dear expeRts,
>> >>>       I have some programming questions about NULL in R.There are listed as follows:
>> >>> 1. I find i can't let a list have a element NULL:
>> >>> a<-list()
>> >>> a$ress<-1
>> >>> a$res<-NULL
>> >>> a
>> >>> str(a)
>> >>
>> >>You can do it using
>> >>
>> >>a <- list(ress = 1, res = NULL)
>> >>
>> >>> How can i know i have a named element but it is NULL, not just get a$xxxx,a$iiii,a$oooo there all get NULL
>> >>
>> >>That's a little harder.  There are a few ways:
>> >>
>> >>"res" %in% names(a) & is.null(a[["res"]])
>> >>
>> >>or
>> >>
>> >>identical(a["res"], list(res = NULL))
>> >>
>> >>or
>> >>
>> >>is.null(a[[2]])
>> >>
>> >>should all work.
>> >>
>> >>Generally because of the special handling needed, it's a bad idea to try
>> >>to store NULL in a list.
>> >>
>> >>> 2.The most important thing:
>> >>> a<-1:10
>> >>> b<-NULL or 1
>> >>> a<-c(a,b) will work so i don't need to know whether b is null or not,but:
>> >>> a[-NULL] can't work!!  i just need a[-NULL]==a , how can i reach this purpose?
>> >>
>> >>Using !, and a logical test, e.g.
>> >>
>> >>a[!nullentry(a)]
>> >>
>> >>where nullentry() is a function based on one of the tests above, but
>> >>applied to all entries.
>> >>
>> >>Duncan Murdoch
>> >>
>> > ______________________________________________
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>> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>