Yes, you can manipulate the language object, and replace the the 1:10 with its own 5. element, and then call eval on the modified expression. This can be simple if you know the structure of the expression well, and difficult otherwise.
It goes like this: SEXP lang_test(SEXP expr, SEXP idx, SEXP idxcall, SEXP env) { SEXP idxcall2 = PROTECT(duplicate(idxcall)); SEXP expr2 = PROTECT(duplicate(expr)); SETCADR(idxcall2, CADR(expr)); SETCADDR(idxcall2, idx); SEXP elem = PROTECT(Rf_eval(idxcall2, env)); SETCADR(expr2, elem); SEXP result = PROTECT(Rf_eval(expr2, env)); UNPROTECT(4); return result; } You need to add some type and index checking, to make sure that expr is a language object and has the proper length, etc. You can call it like this: langtest <- function(expr, idx) { .Call(c_lang_test, expr, idx, as.call(list(`[`, 1:10, 1)), environment()) } We pass an indexing call to do the indexing, for simplicity, this also supports S3 dispatch, etc. Gabor On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 11:35 AM Morgan Morgan <morgan.email...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > I am wondering if the below is possible? > Let's assume I have the following expression: > > 1:10 < 5 > > Is there a way at the R C API level to only evaluate the 5th element (i.e 5 > < 5) instead of evaluating the whole expression and then select the 5th > element in the logical vector? > > Thank you > Best regards > Morgan > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel