column names in matrix vs. data frame in R 1.8
Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> writes:
After thinking about this, I guess I wonder why names<- shouldn't have the argument 'check.names' and/or check the class of its main argument. Why offer protection in one situation and not another?
I don't think you got the point. names<- applies to a generic vector aka list, and the protection applies when generating data frames, not lists. It really is a feature of data frames, not of lists and not of matrices. More pedantically,
get("names<-")
function (x, value)
UseMethod("names<-")
<environment: namespace:base>
so there is no possibility of an extra argument for names<-, even if a
data-frame method were added.
However, nothing is keeping you/us from defining a function fix.names (say) so that you could do names(dataframe) <- fix.names(nm) (I have a sense of deja vu about this: Some other instance, where adding arguments to an assignment function was actually possible, but on closer thought, the wrong thing to do.)
O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Blegdamsvej 3 c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics 2200 Cph. N (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907