[R-SIG-Mac] A question I'm sure I should be able to answer myself

[David Winsemius]

I am not a regular user of that facility and cannot see that it has  
much value over the facilities available in the console. Nontheless, I  
can replicate the error, but not the hang behavior on a relatively  
current 64 bit R installation run from the 64 bit GUI:

 > dput(data2)
structure(list(Id02 = structure(c(1L, 2L, 3L, 3L), .Label = c("1.a",
"2.b", "3.d"), class = "factor"), Area = c(10, 2, 3, 5)), .Names =  
c("Id02",
"Area"), row.names = c(NA, -4L), class = "data.frame")

 > edit(data2)
# choosing the "+" icon in the edit window results in this message in  
the GUI console window
Error in edit.data.frame(data2) :
   SET_VECTOR_ELT() can only be applied to a 'list', not a 'character'

 > sessionInfo()
R version 2.9.1 Patched (2009-07-04 r48897)
x86_64-apple-darwin9.7.0

locale:
en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] splines   stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets   
methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] fortunes_1.3-6  MASS_7.2-46     chron_2.3-30    Design_2.1-2     
survival_2.35-4 Hmisc_3.5-2

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] cluster_1.12.0  grid_2.9.1      lattice_0.17-25 tools_2.9.1

-- 
David Winsemius

On Jul 29, 2009, at 5:53 PM, Tracy Lightcap wrote:

> Friends:
>
> Here's what's happening. I load an environment with some of my  
> datafiles then invoke edit on one of them for test purposes.
>
> > edit (pub09)
>
> Here's the file structure:
>
> > str(pub09)
> 'data.frame':	50 obs. of  15 variables:
> $ id        : int  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...
> $ state     : Factor w/ 50 levels "AK","AL","AR",..: 2 1 4 3 5 6 7 8  
> 9 10 ...
> $ drug07    : num  0.537 0.185 0.733 0.666 0.948 0.406 0.375 1 0.686  
> 0.408 ...
> $ percapin06: int  26940 33257 27849 24829 34555 34437 44266 34123  
> 32021 27988 ...
> $ file06    : int  213284 24213 268126 210265 3287378 189415 407979  
> 25034 1390031 360332 ...
> $ gjjudges06: int  144 44 171 115 1922 150 180 24 554 197 ...
> $ csi06     : num  39.8 32 49.6 49.4 59.5 ...
> $ pop06     : int  4590 677 6166 2809 36250 4766 3496 853 18058  
> 9342 ...
> $ berkson06 : int  9 15 9 12 16 6 15 4 15 0 ...
> $ ifin05    : int  3 4 1 3 2 2 4 4 2 1 ...
> $ stafin05  : num  0.66 0.93 0.19 0.64 0.42 0.5 0.92 0.9 0.51 0.29 ...
> $ pro05     : num  0.34 0.44 0.7 0.4 0.88 0.41 0.56 0.55 0.92 0.39 ...
> $ work06    : num  1481 550 1568 1828 1710 ...
> $ lpop06    : num  3.66 2.83 3.79 3.45 4.56 ...
> $ newpro05  : num  34 44 70 40 88 41 56 55 92 39 ...
>
> I can add/delete rows using the icons with no problems in the  
> editor. Attempting to add columns with the icons, however, results  
> in this error message:
>
> Error in edit.data.frame(pub09)  :
> SET_VECTOR_ELT() can only be applied to a 'list', not a 'character'
>
> Then R shows the beach ball and never resolves the difficulty. And  
> it shows further strangeness: if the edit window is over the  
> console, all text in the console below is erased. I end up having to  
> force quit every time.
>
> This is only a bother; the datafile isn't affected nor the  
> environment. Besides, I usually work on my data in a spreadsheet,  
> then import. Still, if the editor is to be used for classes, I need  
> to find out why this is happening. I'm guessing it is due to  
> character strings in the datafile, but I can't be sure of that given  
> the circumstances.
>
> Model: MacBookPro2,2, BootROM MBP22.00A5.B07, 2 processors, Intel  
> Core 2 Duo, 2.33 GHz, 2 GB
> R:  R 2.9.1 GUI 1.28 Tiger build 32-bit (5444)
>
> Hope I've given enough data to make the problem clear.
>
> Tracy Lightcap
> Professor and Chair
> Department of Political Science
> LaGrange College
> 601 Broad St.
> LaGrange  GA  30240-2999
> (O) tlightcap at lagrange.edu (H) altlamp at mindspring.com
> 706.880.8226
> www.lagrange.edu/academics/political-science/faculty/tlightcap.aspx
>
> _______________________________________________
> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
> R-SIG-Mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac

David Winsemius, MD
Heritage Laboratories
West Hartford, CT