[R] loop over matrix: subscript out of bounds

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Eric Berger    on Wed, 8 Aug 2018 12:53:32 +0300 writes:

> You only need one "for loop"
> for(i in 2:nrow(myMatrix)) {
>    myMatrix[i-1,i-1] = -1
>    myMatrix[i-1,i] = 1
> }
> 
> HTH,
> Eric

and why are you not using Enrico Schumann's even nicer solution
(from August 6) that I had mentioned too ?
Here's the link to it in the (official) R-help archives:
 https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2018-August/455673.html

Maija said
> Thanks, but I didn't quite get it. And I don't get it running as it should.

and actually she is right that that version does not work for
all dimensions of 'myMatrix' -- it does need  ncol(.) >= 3
but neither does the above solution -- it only works for nrow(.) >= 2

Here's a function version of Enrico's that does work in all cases(!)
without a for loop -- including examples (as comments)

mkMat <- function(n=5, m=7) {
    M <- matrix(0, n,m)
    diag(M) <- -1
    ## this fails when m == ncol(M) <= 2, and ', drop=FALSE' does *not* help :
    ## diag(M[, -1]) <- 1
    ## diag(M[, -1, drop=FALSE]) <- 1
    ## This *does* work:
    M[col(M) - row(M) == 1L] <- 1

    M
}
mkMat()
##      [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] [,6] [,7]
## [1,]   -1    1    0    0    0    0    0
## [2,]    0   -1    1    0    0    0    0
## [3,]    0    0   -1    1    0    0    0
## [4,]    0    0    0   -1    1    0    0
## [5,]    0    0    0    0   -1    1    0
mkMat(3,5)
##      [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
## [1,]   -1    1    0    0    0
## [2,]    0   -1    1    0    0
## [3,]    0    0   -1    1    0
mkMat(5,3)
##      [,1] [,2] [,3]
## [1,]   -1    1    0
## [2,]    0   -1    1
## [3,]    0    0   -1
## [4,]    0    0    0
## [5,]    0    0    0

## Show that all small (m,n) work:
for(m in 0:3)
    for(n in 0:3) {
        cat(sprintf("(%d,%d):\n", n,m)); print(mkMat(n,m))
    }

## (output not shown here)


> 
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 12:40 PM, Maija Sirkjärvi <maija.sirkjarvi using gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >   [.............]
> >   [.............]

> > However. The result that I would need to get would be like this:
> >
> >     [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] [,6] [,7]
> > [1,]  -1    1    0    0    0    0    0
> > [2,]   0   -1    1    0    0    0    0
> > [3,]   0    0   -1    1    0    0    0
> > [4,]   0    0    0   -1    1    0    0
> > [5,]   0    0    0    0   -1    1    0