This is (likely) because of source references. If you look at attributes(x[[3]]), you can see a source reference, which contains a source file, which is an environment that will not be identical when unserialized and reserialized (there are exceptions, such as globalenv(), but those aren't source files so aren't relevant here). Additionally, x[[4]] is a source reference, so another reason it's not identical.
You can use utils::removeSource(x) to fix this issue, removing the source references, and then they'll be identical. On Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 13:13 Tim Taylor <[email protected]> wrote: > Is there a correct way to compare language objects that may have been > serialized? > If I run the following in an interactive, but 'vanilla' R, session: > > x <- quote(\(){}) > y <- serialize(x, NULL) > z <- unserialize(y) > identical(x, z) > > Then the resulting answer is FALSE. But I get TRUE if run as > > $ R --vanilla -s -e "x <- quote(\(){}) > y <- serialize(x, NULL) > z <- unserialize(y) > identical(x, z)" > [1] TRUE > > Is this where I need to start thinking about the refhook argument? > > Any help appreciated. > > Tim > > ______________________________________________ > [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.
