I will correct myself. "Special features of the languages" is not the same as "computing on the language." So my comment misunderstood your meaning.
Bert On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 8:21 AM Bert Gunter <[email protected]> wrote: > I disagree. I see "formals() <- " as a way to compute on **functions**, > which are first class *objects* in R, as in any functional programming > language. This is not computing on the language as I understand the term > -- substitute() and friends are, i.e. anything where eval() is needed to > get a result. > > Cheers, > Bert > > > On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 7:36 AM Richard O'Keefe <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Can I just mention the quick-and-dirty way that will get the job done? >> Not as elegant as use the special features of the language *meant* for >> this kind of job, >> but suitable for a bear of very little brain. >> >> 1. Write a function that constructs the code you want as text, written >> to a file. >> 2. source() the file.' >> >> On Sat, 25 Oct 2025 at 15:23, Rolf Turner <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > >> > I want to build a function (say "buildFn") to *return* a function of the >> > form >> > >> > foo(x,y,a1, ... an, b1, ..., bn) >> > >> > where the arguments ai and bi are given in the form of a list created >> > in R. E.g. I'd like to be able to say >> > >> > argnms <- c(paste0("a",1:3),paste0("b",1:3")) >> > foo <- buildFn(argnms) >> > >> > with the resulting "foo" having arguments x, y, a1, a2, a3, b1, b2, b3. >> > >> > I thought I might be able to do this using "formals<-" but I cannot get >> > this to work. i could provide more detail of what I've tried, but it's >> > probably not worth it. >> > >> > Can anyone steer me in the right direction? Thanks. >> > >> > cheers, >> > >> > Rolf Turner >> > >> > -- >> > Honorary Research Fellow >> > Department of Statistics >> > University of Auckland >> > Stats. Dep't. (secretaries) phone: >> > +64-9-373-7599 ext. 89622 >> > Home phone: +64-9-480-4619 >> > >> > ______________________________________________ >> > [email protected] 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. >> >> ______________________________________________ >> [email protected] 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. >> > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ [email protected] 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.
