R annoyances

Thomas Lumley wrote:

On Thu, 19 May 2005, Chalasani, Prasad wrote:

(b) When extracting 2 or more columns of a matrix,
   R returns the result as a matrix, BUT when extracting
   just one column, it returns a vector/array, rather than
   a matrix, so I've to keep doing as.matrix, which is annoying.

    sub.mtx <- as.matrix(mtx[,1])

    Of course I could write a suitable function
        cols <- function(mtx,range) as.matrix(mtx[, range])
    but then I lose the syntactic sugar of being able to say "[,1]".

This one is actually a FAQ,
        mtx[,1,drop=FALSE]

    -thomas

I wonder whether there is, or should be, a way to set FALSE as the default?
First question: No.
Second question: No, because *many* functions do rely on the fact that 
x[,1] returns a vector rather than a matrix.

Uwe Ligges
______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide! 
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html

R annoyances

Thread (8 messages)