Stavros Macrakis wrote:
Tested in: R version 2.8.1 (2008-12-22) / Windows

Recursive default argument references normally give nice clear errors.
 In the first set of examples, you get the error:

  Error in ... :
  promise already under evaluation: recursive default argument
reference or earlier problems?

  (function(a = a) a      ) ()
  (function(a = a) c(a)   ) ()
  (function(a = a) a[1]   ) ()
  (function(a = a) a[[1]] ) ()
  (function(a = a) a$x    ) ()
  (function(a = a) mean(a) )   ()
  (function(a = a) sort(a) ) ()
  (function(a = a) as.list(a) ) ()

But in the following examples, R seems not to detect the 'promise
already under evaluation' condition and instead gets a stack overflow,
with the error message:

  Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit

  (function(a = a)  (a)    ) ()
  (function(a = a)  -a     ) ()
  (function(a = a) var(a) ) ()
  (function(a = a) sum(a) ) ()
  (function(a = a) is.vector(a) ) ()
  (function(a = a) as.numeric(a) ) ()

I don't understand why the two sets of examples behave differently.

Ouch!!!

This shouldn't happen, I'm pretty sure. In particular not the apparently unstoppable loop under Linux. Thanks for pointing it out.


--
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Ă˜ster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalga...@biostat.ku.dk)              FAX: (+45) 35327907

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