Accessing just the value of an object but not the attributes
I see the role of as.vector(). But even if as.vector() needs to keep its attribute-dropping side-effect for compatibility reasons, wouldn't a dropattr() still be a good idea? For instance, I can assign attributes to closures, but wont get rid of them using as.vector() - and neither using as.function() by the way ... So if I dont know in advance what kind of object it is and I do want to just access the "value" in any case I have to check the type ... ? Johann
Martin Maechler wrote:
[...] "unfortunately" : IMO, a vector with attributes is still a vector, particularly if these are just names.. hence as.vector() should leave it alone, but -- alas -- it's for compatibility reasons too important to be changed. So even if a new dropattributes() function would do what as.vector() does now, it would break too much code if as.vector() was changed... Note that "unfortunately" is my personal opinion, not a general R core one.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._