[R] the difference between "-" and "!" between base and data.table package

[David Winsemius]

> On Apr 15, 2017, at 5:18 PM, Carl Sutton via R-help <r-help at r-project.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi 
> 
> 
> I normally use package data.table but today was doing some base R coding.  Had a problem for a bit which I finally resolved.  I was attempting to separate a data frame between train and test sets, and in base R was using the "!" to exclude training set indices from the data frame.  All I was getting was zero observations.  Changed to using "-" and it worked.  I recalled that in data.table the "!" function worked, so created this little bit of code.
> 
> #  Base R Functions
> str(mtcars)
> train_indices <- sample(nrow(mtcars), round(0.75*nrow(mtcars)))
> train <- mtcars[train_indices,]
> mode(train_indices); class(train_indices)
> test <- mtcars[!train_indices,]  #  the "!" function returning 0 observations

The arguments you are supplying:

> table( !train_indices )

FALSE 
   24 


> test_1 <- mtcars[-train_indices,]
> identical(test, test_1)
> 
> #  Using data.table package
> library(data.table)
> dt1 <- data.table(mtcars)
> train_indices <- sample(nrow(dt1), round(0.75*nrow(dt1)))
> train <- dt1[train_indices,]

The data.table "[" function has very different syntax and evaluation rules than does the data.frame "[" function, but I guess you know that.


> mode(train_indices); class(train_indices)
> test <- dt1[!train_indices,]  #  the "!" function
> test_1 <- dt1[-train_indices,]
> identical(test, test_1)
> The documentation appears to me to accept "!" in base, so do I have some kind of ridiculous error or ..??

Not sure about "ridiculous" and you have not actually said what it was that _you_ were questioning.
If it is the lack of any return from `test <- mtcars[!train_indices,]` than it could be argued that was a ridiculous expectation at least according to the rules of vector evaluation in row selection that I thought I understood. Giving a vector of FALSE values to `[.data.frame` would not reasonably be expected to return anything. Whether giving a vector of only FALSE's to `[.data.table` and actually getting something back does seem kind of unexpected to me, but clearly it didn't seem ridiculous to Matt Dowle. Clearly the recycling rules for `[.data.table are different than those of `[.data.frame`. Data.tables don't use rownames.


The results from:

> dt1[rep(FALSE,24), ]
Error in `[.data.table`(dt1, rep(FALSE, 24), ) : 
  i evaluates to a logical vector length 24 but there are 32 rows. Recycling of logical i is no longer allowed as it hides more bugs than is worth the rare convenience. Explicitly use rep(...,length=.N) if you really need to recycle.

... is different than from 

dt1[!train_indices, ] # get 8 rows.

To me that doesn't make sense.


I generally use %in% for row selection. But many people would also find this pair of results "ridiculous":

> mtcars[ which( train_indices %in% 50:100), ]
 [1] mpg  cyl  disp hp   drat wt   qsec vs   am   gear carb
<0 rows> (or 0-length row.names)
> mtcars[ -which( train_indices %in% 50:100), ]   # bad idea to use minus before which()
 [1] mpg  cyl  disp hp   drat wt   qsec vs   am   gear carb
<0 rows> (or 0-length row.names)

Yes, I know that some people think the `which` is not needed. I'm not one of them.

-- 
David.


> Carl Sutton
> 
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David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA