Others have mentioned the readability issues (which are important), but think about what would happen in the case where the variable lambda rule ended up with a value like:
lambda.rule <- "a;system('SomeEvilSytemCommand')" Or what if the element of the list desired has a space in its name. And there is the whole efficiency issue. Using '$' for subsetting lists is a shortcut for a special (but common) case. Using tools like paste, parse, and eval to be able to use that short cut is kind of like saying that you know a great shortcut between New York City and Boston and therefore include that in your route going from London to Paris. On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 5:04 AM, Heramb Gadgil <heramb.gad...@gmail.com>wrote: > Agreed. > > But the initial question was to get the output with paste function. That is > the reason why I went for eval. > > Please let me know in case I am going the wrong way > > On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Jessica Streicher < > j.streic...@micromata.de > > wrote: > > > Well for one, if ever someone looks at your code, cvtest[[lambda.rule]] > is > > much easier to read and understand than > > eval(parse(text=paste0("cvtest$",lambda.rule))) > > > > > > On 27.12.2012, at 11:44, Heramb Gadgil wrote: > > > > > I am not sure why "Never ever!" > > > > > > Can you please elaborate. What are the negatives about the method > > > > > > Warm Regards, > > > Heramb M. Gadgil > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Uwe Ligges < > > lig...@statistik.tu-dortmund.de > > >> wrote: > > > > > >> > > >> > > >> On 27.12.2012 08:09, Heramb Gadgil wrote: > > >> > > >>> eval(parse(text=paste0("**cvtest$",lambda.rule))) > > >>> > > >> > > >> No, never ever! > > >> > > >> There is an R idiom made for it: > > >> > > >> cvtest[[lambda.rule]] > > >> > > >> Uwe Ligges > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> I hope this works. > > >>> > > >>> On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 12:57 AM, Thomas Stewart > > >>> <tgs.public.m...@gmail.com>**wrote: > > >>> > > >>> Soyeon- > > >>>> > > >>>> A possible solution: > > >>>> > > >>>> get(lambda.rule,envir=**list2env(cvtest)) > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 12:34 PM, Soyeon Kim <yunni0...@gmail.com> > > >>>> wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>> Dear my R friends, > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I want to get a number from a list using paste function. > > >>>>> In my example, > > >>>>> lambda.rule <- "lambda.1se" > > >>>>> cvtest is a list (result from cv.glmnet) > > >>>>> and > > >>>>> cvtest$lambda.1se > > >>>>> [1] 1.308973 > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I want to call the value using paste function. > > >>>>> I used get function but there was an error. > > >>>>> test <- get(paste("cvtest$",lambda.**rule, sep="")) > > >>>>> Error in get(paste("cvtest$", lambda.rule, sep = "")) : > > >>>>> object 'cvtest$lambda.1se' not found > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Do you guys know how to solve this issue? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Thank you so much in advance and merry Christmas! > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Soyeon > > >>>>> > > >>>>> ______________________________**________________ > > >>>>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > >>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/**listinfo/r-help< > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help> > > >>>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide > > >>>>> http://www.R-project.org/**posting-guide.html< > > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html> > > >>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > >>>> > > >>>> ______________________________**________________ > > >>>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/**listinfo/r-help< > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help> > > >>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide > > >>>> http://www.R-project.org/**posting-guide.html< > > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html> > > >>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > >>> > > >>> ______________________________**________________ > > >>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/**listinfo/r-help< > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help> > > >>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/** > > >>> posting-guide.html <http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html> > > >>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > >>> > > >>> > > > > > > [[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. > > > > > > [[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. > -- Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. 538...@gmail.com [[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.