Problem with "missing" in "local" (PR#1241) - R-devel

Fri, Jan 4, 2002 6:48 AM #

Hi Brian,

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

By "reasonable" in this context I mean that the operation would appear
to be well-defined and useful.  I can access x within the local()
environment, ie it is found in the enclosing environment, and I do not
think that y should be treated any differently.  If I modify my function
to read

fred <- function(x, y)
{
  x <- as.vector(x)
  local({
    print(x)
    print(y)
    if (missing(y)) print("No \"y\" today")
  })
  x
}

then I get the error message

[1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
Error in print(y) : Argument "y" is missing, with no default

This error message suggests to me that "missing(y)" would evaluate
correctly.

The help file for "missing".  This points out that "missing" is not
always reliable, eg after "x <- match.arg(x)".  Perhaps this could be
another example of "unreliability".

Cheers, Jonathan.

Jonathan Rougier                       Science Laboratories
Department of Mathematical Sciences    South Road
University of Durham                   Durham DH1 3LE
tel: +44 (0)191 374 2361, fax: +44 (0)191 374 7388
http://www.maths.dur.ac.uk/stats/people/jcr/jcr.html

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Luke Tierney

Fri, Jan 4, 2002 7:17 AM #

I think Jonathan has a point.  Here is another variation that does not
involve explicit eval or local:

	f<-function(x){
	    g<-function() missing(x)
	    g()
	}

	> f()
	Error in g() : "missing" illegal use of missing

This sort of thing does not arise in S, but with lexical scope in R it
seems natural to me at least that missing should work on lexically
visible variables.  The error produced by

	f<-function(x){
	    g<-function() x
	    g()
	}

	> f()
	Error in g() : Argument "x" is missing, with no default

also suggests that it would be nice to be able to use missing to guard
against this error.

For the short term we should add a note to the help file for missing
(I will do this), but longer term I think we should revise the missing
inplementation to handle these cases more naturally (unless anyone
sees anything seriously wrong with that).

By the way, the help for missing says:

     `missing(x)' is only reliable if `x' has not been altered since
     entering the function: in particular it will always be true after
     `x <- match.arg(x)'. 

I believe that should be "... it will always be false after ..."?

luke

On Fri, Jan 04, 2002 at 03:48:07PM +0100, J.C.Rougier@durham.ac.uk wrote:

Hi Brian,

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002 J.C.Rougier@durham.ac.uk wrote:

Hi everyone,

I encountered unexpected behaviour when calling "missing" within a
"local" environment, namely

fred <- function(x, y)
{
  x <- as.vector(x)
  local({
    dontwantme <- 1:100
    if (missing(y)) print("No \"y\" today")
  })
  x
}

whereupon I get

fred(1:10)

Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : "missing" illegal use of missing

I think it is reasonable to expect missing to work in this context (I
suspect the problem relates to lazy evaluation): if not, it might be
helpful to amend the help file.

Why do you think it reasonable?  You've take a function from

     Evaluate an R expression in a specified environment.

and evaluated it somewhere where missing() is not defined.  If you had
used eval() explicitly, would you think it reasonable?  I doubt it.

By "reasonable" in this context I mean that the operation would appear
to be well-defined and useful.  I can access x within the local()
environment, ie it is found in the enclosing environment, and I do not
think that y should be treated any differently.  If I modify my function
to read

fred <- function(x, y)
{
  x <- as.vector(x)
  local({
    print(x)
    print(y)
    if (missing(y)) print("No \"y\" today")
  })
  x
}

then I get the error message

fred(1:10)

 [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
Error in print(y) : Argument "y" is missing, with no default

This error message suggests to me that "missing(y)" would evaluate
correctly.

Which help file did you have in mind?

The help file for "missing".  This points out that "missing" is not
always reliable, eg after "x <- match.arg(x)".  Perhaps this could be
another example of "unreliability".

Cheers, Jonathan.

-- 
Jonathan Rougier                       Science Laboratories
Department of Mathematical Sciences    South Road
University of Durham                   Durham DH1 3LE
tel: +44 (0)191 374 2361, fax: +44 (0)191 374 7388
http://www.maths.dur.ac.uk/stats/people/jcr/jcr.html

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