Message-ID: <CAAmySGPOXq+8-GaQwLf2qtztLRJGQk81BZybwnOh-jZLnGUFig@mail.gmail.com>
Date: 2012-11-29T10:09:10Z
From: R. Michael Weylandt
Subject: Can you turn a string into a (working) symbol?
In-Reply-To: <1354071994660-4651069.post@n4.nabble.com>
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 3:06 AM, andrewH <ahoerner at rprogress.org> wrote:
> Dear Michael ?
> This is _very_ interesting and I want to play around with the functions you
> suggest. I had no idea it was so easy to define assignment operators.
>
> However, one question: even after reading the ?get? documentation and doing
> a bunch of mousing around for the expressions ?pos? and ?the search path?, I
> am not sure what function the numeral 1 in these expression serves. Why do I
> want to look in the global environment rather than the current environment?
> I also can not find anything that explains what the default ?pos = -1? does.
>
> Thanks for responding!
>
> andrewH
Hi Andrew,
Including context for those of us who don't read via Nabble is always
much appreciated.
I don't have time today to hit this with a hammer till it works, but
IIRC pos = -1 means "current evaluation frame".
See, e.g.,
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12492226/r-environments-and-function-call-stacks
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7903414/how-are-environments-enclosures-and-frames-related
http://obeautifulcode.com/R/How-R-Searches-And-Finds-Stuff/
for some hints on getting all that jazz to work right.
MW