Sure thing. I realize that it is an unusual request and not the type of thing that I have seen used in any other language that I know of.
So right now I am using some of the statistical functions of R to get some summary statistics and visual output from this historic data set. I have a lot functions that look something like this: summary(lm(SLV_DIE_PER[tontype==TONNAGE_TYPE]~SLV_PER_TON[tontype==TONNAGE_TYPE])) SLV_DIE_PER - being the percent of slaves that died between purchase and delivery SLV_PER_TON - being the number of slaves per standardized ton (ship capacity) tontype - being the type of ton that the ship capacity was recorded as. There are various factors mostly in the form of 1,2,3,4,5... representing Spanish Ton, British Ton, etc. Now I want to run a simple linear model and graphs and other things by specifying TONNAGE_TYPE=1 or 2 etc. Giving me a regression that is only using looking at a particular type of tonnage over that of another. All of that works fine. But, it gets a little ugly when I want to generalize the linear model to include all values irrespective of tontype. Of course I could duplicate and trim the statement as such: summary(lm(SLV_DIE_PER~SLV_PER_TON)) I am sure you can see how a wildcard could be more important given a series of similar expressions. Perhaps something that looks like this: summary(SLV_DIE_PER[(SLV_DIE_PER>=SLV_Min_Value)&(Nationality==Select_Nationality)&((SLV_PER_TON<=SLV_Max_Value))&(tontype==TONNAGE_TYPE)])) Well thanks for your interest. Any suggestions that can help clean up my code could be extremely helpful right now. Btw thanks Dieter for that hint. Not exactly what I was looking for but I am sure to use it in the future. Romain. Thanks for your code, though I don't see readily how to fit "w" into your functions. Perhaps you could add an additional line between: "is.na.wildcard <- function( x ) FALSE" and "> w == 1" Thanks! Francis > > On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 2:02 AM, Patrick Burns <pbu...@pburns.seanet.com> > wrote: >> I would be truly amazed if the answer were "yes". >> >> I find this the most fascinating question on R-help >> for a long time, maybe ever. Can you tell us what >> you have in mind and what your ultimate purpose is? >> >> Patrick Burns >> patr...@burns-stat.com >> +44 (0)20 8525 0696 >> http://www.burns-stat.com >> (home of "The R Inferno" and "A Guide for the Unwilling S User") >> >> Francis Smart wrote: >>> >>> Is there a wildcard value for vector values in r? >>> >>> For instance: >>> >>> >>>> >>>> M <- *wildcard >>>> >>> >>> >>>> >>>> (M==1) >>>> >>> >>> TRUE >>> >>> >>>> >>>> (M=="peanut butter") >>>> >>> >>> TRUE >>> >>> >>>> >>>> is.na(M) >>>> >>> >>> FALSE >>> >>> thanks, >>> Francis >>> >>> >> > > > > -- > Francis Smart > (406) 223-8108 cell > -- Francis Smart (406) 223-8108 cell ______________________________________________ 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.
