hi all -- let's say i have the following simplified plyr code:

> factor_table <- data.frame(dim1 = 1:10, dim2 = 1:4)
> foo <- maply(factor_table, function(dim1, dim2) list(a = "foo", b =
runif(10)))

foo will now be a 10 x 4 x 2 array (of mode 'list'), and i'll have to
access a "b" element like so:
> foo[[1,1,"b"]]

if i replace the anonymous function with another that returns a
variable-length list, however, foo will be a 10 x 4 array (again of mode
'list'), and i'll have to access a "b" element like so:
> foo[[1,1]]$b  ## or foo[[1,1]][["b"]]

i tend to prefer this latter approach, since it's agnostic to the called
function in the maply loop, and thus makes downstream coding more
consistent (in case upstream functions change, the addressing scheme
required to recover that function's various return values is somewhat
uniform).

does anyone know if we can "force" plyr to _not_ try to simplify along the
inner function's return value length when using the _aply family of calls?

cheers,

-m

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