Dear list, Consider the following,
library(grid) w = unit.c(unit(1, "in"), unit(2, "in")) w2 = w + unit(1, "mm") w[2] <- 0 w2[2] <- 0 convertUnit(w, "mm") #[1] 25.4mm 0mm convertUnit(w2, "mm") #Error in grid.Call("L_convert", x, as.integer(whatfrom), as.integer(whatto), : # INTEGER() can only be applied to a 'integer', not a 'NULL' The last line fails, as the naive replacement has destroyed the structure of w2 instead of having assigned a value of 0 to the second unit element. I've also tried, w = unit.c(unit(1, "in"), unit(2, "in")) w2 = w + unit(1, "mm") w2[[2]][2] <- 0 but this time, if the structure is licit, it's the result that's not as I intended: convertUnit(w2,"mm") #[1] 26.4mm 1mm My limited understanding is that an object of class unit.arithmetic is waiting until the last moment to actually perform its operation, stored in a tree-like structure. With this premise, I can't think of a good way to modify one element of a list of unit elements. As a workaround, I can only think of the following hack where the objects are forced to be evaluated, w = unit.c(unit(1, "in"), unit(2, "in")) w2 = convertUnit(w + unit(1, "mm"), "mm", valueOnly=TRUE) w2[2] <- 0 w2 <- unit(w2, "mm") but it clearly isn't a very desirable route. What is the recommended way to modify one element of a unit vector? Digging in grid/R/unit.R , I found the following comment, # Write "[<-.unit" methods too ?? which probably explains the above. Would it be possible to add such a method, "[<-.unit.list" <- function(x, index, value, top=TRUE, ...) { this.length <- length(x) index <- (1L:this.length)[index] if (top && any(index > this.length)) stop("Index out of bounds (unit list subsetting)") cl <- class(x) result <- unclass(x) result[(index - 1) %% this.length + 1] <- value class(result) <- cl result } a = unit.c(unit(1,"mm"),unit(2,"in")) a[2] <- unit(3,"in") a but for unit.arithmetic also? Regards, baptiste sessionInfo() R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24) i386-apple-darwin8.11.1 locale: en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/C/C/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8 attached base packages: [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets grid methods [8] base ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel