Dear R-group,
is there a way to perform calculations that are defined in a string format?
for example I have different variables:
x1 <- 3
x2 <- 1
x4 <- 1
and a string-variable:
do <- 'x1 + x2 + x3'
Is there any way to perform what the variable 'do'-describes
(just like the formula-element but more elemental)?
Perhaps my idea to solve my problem is a little bit strange.
My general problem is, that I have to do arithmetics for which there seems to be no function available that I can apply in order to be more flexible.
To be precise, I have to add up three dimensional arrays.
I can do that like this (as someone suggested on this help-list ? thanks for that!):
(array[,,1] + array[,,2] + array[,,3]) / 3
However in my case it can happen that at some point, I don't have to add 3 but 8 'array-slices'
(or 10 or x).
And I don't want to manually expand the above statement to:
(array[,,1] + array[,,2] + array[,,3] + array[,,4] + array[,,5] + array[,,6] + array[,,7] + array[,,8]) / 8
(ok, now I have done it ;)
So, my thinking was that I can easily expand and change a string (with the paste-function / repeat-function etc.).
But how can I expand a mathematical statement?
thanks for any suggestions!