recursive functions and global variables

Hi,
	I am trying to write a recursive routine which passes some
variables through the function calls but also refers to some global
variables. I need the global variables because they are very big (n by n
matrices where n is <= 1000) and I don't have the huge amount of memory
needed to spawn dozens of copies of these matrices. The problem seems to
be that while variables in the root environment of R are global, variables
created in a function func1() are not available in functions called by
func1(). (See the example below.) So I need a way to create some variables
at the root level of a function that are available at any level
'underneath' the base function level. Note also that I want to be able to
modify elements that are at a higher level as well.

On Sun, 14 Oct 2001, David A Richmond wrote:

Hi,
	I am trying to write a recursive routine which passes some
variables through the function calls but also refers to some global
variables. I need the global variables because they are very big (n by n
matrices where n is <= 1000) and I don't have the huge amount of memory
needed to spawn dozens of copies of these matrices. The problem seems to
be that while variables in the root environment of R are global, variables
created in a function func1() are not available in functions called by
func1(). (See the example below.) So I need a way to create some variables
at the root level of a function that are available at any level
'underneath' the base function level. Note also that I want to be able to
modify elements that are at a higher level as well.

You probably want to use a named environment. There's an example in the
`Programmer's Niche' section of the 2nd R newsletter, on the R home page.

Basically, you create an environment like

   storage<-new.env()

and pass it down through your functions. You can then use get() and
assign() to retrieve and modify objects in this environment.

This is often the R way to handle issues for which S-PLUS programmers
would use 'frame 0' and 'frame 1'.


	-thomas

Thomas Lumley			Asst. Professor, Biostatistics
tlumley at u.washington.edu	University of Washington, Seattle

Hi again, 
	OK, I figured out how to get "new.env()" and "environment <-"
(thanks for the advice!) to allow called functions to access the variables
_created_ in the calling functions, but not the variables passed to the
calling function in the first place. For example, consider:

test <- function(x) {
	new.env-> storage
	environment<-storage
	b <- x^2
	test2(storage)
}

test2 <- function(e) {
	environment <- e
	cat("x =",x,"\n")
	cat("b =",b,"\n")
	return(b+1.1)
}	

test(3)

This fails in 'cat("x =",x,"\n")' because test2() doesn't know what "x" is
because it wasn't created in test(), but rather was a value passed to
test. Is there any way to get test2() to recognize this variable? (I know
I could simply make a copy x2 <- x in test(), but I'm trying to save
space, in my final application the 'x' will be a big array.

dave

On Sun, 14 Oct 2001, David A Richmond wrote:

Hi,
	I am trying to write a recursive routine which passes some
variables through the function calls but also refers to some global
variables. I need the global variables because they are very big (n by n
matrices where n is <= 1000) and I don't have the huge amount of memory
needed to spawn dozens of copies of these matrices. The problem seems to
be that while variables in the root environment of R are global, variables
created in a function func1() are not available in functions called by
func1(). (See the example below.) So I need a way to create some variables
at the root level of a function that are available at any level
'underneath' the base function level. Note also that I want to be able to
modify elements that are at a higher level as well.

You probably want to use a named environment. There's an example in the
`Programmer's Niche' section of the 2nd R newsletter, on the R home page.

Basically, you create an environment like

   storage<-new.env()

and pass it down through your functions. You can then use get() and
assign() to retrieve and modify objects in this environment.

This is often the R way to handle issues for which S-PLUS programmers
would use 'frame 0' and 'frame 1'.


	-thomas

Thomas Lumley			Asst. Professor, Biostatistics
tlumley at u.washington.edu	University of Washington, Seattle

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