FWIW: Lists are a fundamental, universal, recursive data structure. All other data structures (i.e. r.e. sets) can be represented as lists. Indeed, one of the earliest "high level" (non-machine instructions) computer languages, McCarthy's LISP = List Processing, is based on lists. R was designed to be LISP-like (= a functional programming language) in some fundamentals ways. So it is no surprise that lists are widely used within R.
Cheers, Bert On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:37 PM, Ajay Askoolum <aa2e...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Hi Sarah, > > Thanks you for the clarifications; I had worked round the problem > by switching to a data.frame. > > However, I am still unclear about 'list': as it exists, it must > have a purpose. When is the use of the list data structure appropriate? > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > -- Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics Internal Contact Info: Phone: 467-7374 Website: http://pharmadevelopment.roche.com/index/pdb/pdb-functional-groups/pdb-biostatistics/pdb-ncb-home.htm ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
