Ivo, et al.: --IMHO only ... and with apologies for verbosity Defining, let alone enforcing, "consistent behavior" can be a philosophical conundrum: what one person deems "consistent" behavior for a function across different data structures and circumstances may not be the same as another's. While you may consider the issue clear here, a glance at the source code shows that may not necessarily be the case: mean() is an S3 generic, but sd() is derived from var() which is in turn based on cov(), for which NA handling is more complex.
Anyway, for me, the only defensible standard should be is that the *documented* behavior for overloaded function names is that they should be accurately documented for each use case, whether or not the semantics conform to any particular paradigm of consistency. By this standard, I think mean() is behaving correctly, as its Help page says: na.rm a *logical* evaluating to TRUE or FALSE indicating whether NA values should be stripped before the computation proceeds. [emphasis added] Note: *not* a value that can be *coerced* to logical, but an actual logical expression. But sd() is not, as its Help page says: na.rm logical. Should missing values be removed? Note: So seemingly same as above, but as you noted, will work for values that can be coerced to logical and not just actual logical expressions. Cheers, Bert On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 11:43 AM ivo welch <ivo.we...@ucla.edu> wrote: > > isn't this still a little R buglet? I have overwritten T (even if my > schuld [franconian], it is not that uncommon an error, because T is also a > common abbreviation for the end of a time series; namespace pollution in R > can be quite annoying, even though I understand that it is convenient in > interactive mode). Nevertheless, I am passing into mean() a positive > number for na.rm, and by definition, a positive number still means TRUE. > besides, sd() and mean() should probably treat this similarly, anyway. I > do see the argument that functions cannot be proof against redefinitions of > all sorts of objects that they can use. more philosophically, some > variables should not be overwritable, or at least trigger a warning. > > As Dante wrote, Abandon all hope ye who enter R. > > -- > Ivo Welch (ivo.we...@ucla.edu) > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
