[R] the less-than-minus gotcha

[Robert Douglas Kinley]

Rolf Turner is right on the money about not mixing-up '=' and '<-'

Though this 'gotcha' will always a threat while  '<-'  is the assignment operator.

The old Algol60 syntax of ':=' was less error-prone, but I guess '<-' is too firmly bedded-in to ever change.

Meanwhile, spaces around the assignment operator gives less error-prone and more readable code.

cheers  Bob Kinley  

_____________________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: R-help [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Rolf Turner
Sent: 02 February 2015 11:58
To: Steve Taylor; r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R] the less-than-minus gotcha


On 02/02/15 14:26, Steve Taylor wrote:

> All the more reason to use = instead of <-

Couldn't agree less, Steve. The "<-" should be used for assignment. The "=" sign should be reserved for handling function arguments in the "name=value" form.  Doing anything else invites confusion and occasionally chaos.

Lots of examples have been given in the past involving syntax of the form foo(x = y) and foo(x <- y).

cheers,

Rolf

--
Rolf Turner
Technical Editor ANZJS
Department of Statistics
University of Auckland
Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
Home phone: +64-9-480-4619

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