[R] Mean error message missing

Christian Brandstätter bran.chri at gmail.com
Mon Jun 8 14:05:52 CEST 2015


Thank you very much, I didn't know that.

> On 08/06/2015 6:04 AM, Christian Brandstätter wrote:
>> Thank you for the explanation.
>> But if you take for instance plot.default(), being another generic
>> function, it would not work like that:
>> plot(1,2,3,4), only plot(1,2) is accepted.
>>
>>
>>   From R-help (Usage):
>> ## Default S3 method:
>> mean(x, trim = 0, na.rm = FALSE, ...)
>>
>> What is puzzling, is that apparently na.rm (and trim, which is indicated in the help) is accepting numeric values.
>> mean(c(1,NA,10),10,TRUE)
>> mean(c(1,NA,10),10,FALSE)
>>
>> This should give at least a warning in my opinion.
> It is a common idiom in R programming to treat non-zero values as TRUE,
> and zero as FALSE.  If every use of a number where a logical is needed
> generated a warning, you'd be swamped with them.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
>> mean(c(1,NA,10),10,200)
>>
>>
>>
>> On 08/06/2015 09:27, Achim Zeileis wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 8 Jun 2015, Christian Brandst�tter wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear list,
>>>>
>>>> I found an odd behavior of the mean function; it is allowed to do
>>>> something that you probably shouldn't:
>>>> If you calculate mean() of a sequence of numbers (without declaring
>>>> them as vector), mean() then just computes mean() of the first
>>>> element. Is there a reason why there is no warning, like in sd for
>>>> example?
>>> mean() - unlike sd() - is a generic function that has a '...' argument
>>> that is passed on to its methods. The default method which is called
>>> in your example also has a '...' argument (because the generic has it)
>>> but doesn't use it.
>>>
>>>> Example code:
>>>> mean(1,2,3,4)
>>>> sd(1,2,3,4)
>>>>
>>>> Best regards
>>>> Christian
>>>>
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>>>>
>>
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
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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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