I'm trying to program over a function inside a package, but I'm stuck with the function internally using match.call() to parse one of its arguments.
A super-simplified example of the function with the usual utilization could look like this:
f1 = function(x, y=0, z=0, a=0, b=0){ #lots of arguments not needed for the example
mc = match.call()
return(mc$x)
#Returning for testing purpose.
#Normally, the function later uses calls as character:
r1 = as.character(mc$x[1])
r2 = as.character(mc$x[2])
#...
}
x1 = f1(x = foo(bar))
x1
# foo(bar)
class(x1)
# [1] "call"
In my case, I need to get the value of x from a variable (value in the following code). Expected utilisation of f1 is as following :
value = "foo(bar)" #this line could also be anything else
f1(x=some_magic_function(value))
# Expected result = foo(bar)
# Unwanted result = some_magic_function(value)
Unfortunately, match.call() always return the very input value. I'm quite out of my league here so I only tried few functions.
Is there any way I could trick match.call() so it could accept external variable ?
Failed attempts so far:
#I tried to create the exact same call using rlang::sym()
#This may not be the best way...
value = call("foo", rlang::sym("bar"))
value
# foo(bar)
class(value)
# [1] "call"
x1==value
# [1] TRUE
f1(x=value)
# value
f1(x=eval(value))
# eval(value)
f1(x=substitute(value))
# substitute(value)
There's nothing you can include as a parameter to f1 to make this work. Instead, you would dynamically need to build your call to f1. With base R you might do this with do.call.
do.call("f1", list(parse(text=value)[[1]]))
or with rlang
eval_tidy(quo(f1(!!parse_expr(value))))
Related
I've just read about delayedAssign(), but the way you have to do it is by passing the name of the delayed variable as the first parameter. Is there a way to do it via direct assignment?
e.g.:
x <- delayed_variable("Hello World")
rather than
delayedAssign("x","Hello World")
I want to create a variable that will throw an error if accessed (use-case is obviously more complex), so for example:
f <- function(x){
y <- delayed_variable(stop("don't use y"))
x
}
f(10)
> 10
f <- function(x){
y <- delayed_variable(stop("don't use y"))
y
}
f(10)
> Error in f(10) : don't use y
No, you can't do it that way. Your example would be fine with the current setup, though:
f <- function(x){
delayedAssign("y", stop("don't use y"))
y
}
f(10)
which gives exactly the error you want. The reason for this limitation is that delayed_variable(stop("don't use y")) would create a value which would trigger the error when evaluated, and assigning it to y would evaluate it.
Another version of the same thing would be
f <- function(x, y = stop("don't use y")) {
...
}
Internally it's very similar to the delayedAssign version.
I reached a solution using makeActiveBinding() which works provided it is being called from within a function (so it doesn't work if called directly and will throw an error if it is). The main purpose of my use-case is a smaller part of this, but I generalised the code a bit for others to use.
Importantly for my use-case, this function can allow other functions to use delayed assignment within functions and can also pass R CMD Check with no Notes.
Here is the function and it gives the desired outputs from my question.
delayed_variable <- function(call){
#Get the current call
prev.call <- sys.call()
attribs <- attributes(prev.call)
# If srcref isn't there, then we're not coming from a function
if(is.null(attribs) || !"srcref" %in% names(attribs)){
stop("delayed_variable() can only be used as an assignment within a function.")
}
# Extract the call including the assignment operator
this_call <- parse(text=as.character(attribs$srcref))[[1]]
# Check if this is an assignment `<-` or `=`
if(!(identical(this_call[[1]],quote(`<-`)) ||
identical(this_call[[1]],quote(`=`)))){
stop("delayed_variable() can only be used as an assignment within a function.")
}
# Get the variable being assigned to as a symbol and a string
var_sym <- this_call[[2]]
var_str <- deparse(var_sym)
#Get the parent frame that we will be assigining into
p_frame <- parent.frame()
var_env <- new.env(parent = p_frame)
#Create a random string to be an identifier
var_rand <- paste0(sample(c(letters,LETTERS),50,replace=TRUE),collapse="")
#Put the variables into the environment
var_env[["p_frame"]] <- p_frame
var_env[["var_str"]] <- var_str
var_env[["var_rand"]] <- var_rand
# Create the function that will be bound to the variable.
# Since this is an Active Binding (AB), we have three situations
# i) It is run without input, and thus the AB is
# being called on it's own (missing(input)),
# and thus it should evaluate and return the output of `call`
# ii) It is being run as the lhs of an assignment
# as part of the initial assignment phase, in which case
# we do nothing (i.e. input is the output of this function)
# iii) It is being run as the lhs of a regular assignment,
# in which case, we want to overwrite the AB
fun <- function(input){
if(missing(input)){
# No assignment: variable is being called on its own
# So, we activate the delayed assignment call:
res <- eval(call,p_frame)
rm(list=var_str,envir=p_frame)
assign(var_str,res,p_frame)
res
} else if(!inherits(input,"assign_delay") &&
input != var_rand){
# Attempting to assign to the variable
# and it is not the initial definition
# So we overwrite the active binding
res <- eval(substitute(input),p_frame)
rm(list=var_str,envir=p_frame)
assign(var_str,res,p_frame)
invisible(res)
}
# Else: We are assigning and the assignee is the output
# of this function, in which case, we do nothing!
}
#Fix the call in the above eval to be the exact call
# rather than a variable (useful for debugging)
# This is in the line res <- eval(call,p_frame)
body(fun)[[c(2,3,2,3,2)]] <- substitute(call)
#Put the function inside the environment with all
# all of the variables above
environment(fun) <- var_env
# Check if the variable already exists in the calling
# environment and if so, remove it
if(exists(var_str,envir=p_frame)){
rm(list=var_str,envir=p_frame)
}
# Create the AB
makeActiveBinding(var_sym,fun,p_frame)
# Return a specific object to check for
structure(var_rand,call="assign_delay")
}
I'm trying to create a function that subtracts 2 from each element of a vector, and whenever I pass a vector as a parameter to the function, it's outputting an error:
Error in sub(x) : argument "x" is missing, with no default.
so I have a vector that's called x1,
and my function call looks like that: sub(x1)
any help will be appreciated.
sub <- function(x)
{
for(i in 1:length(x))
{
x[i] = x[i]-2
}
return(x)
}
In R a lot of function and operators (just a special form of functions) are vectorised. Vectorisation means that a function/operator works automatically on all elements of an vector (or vector like object).
Therefore, our problem can be solved with much less code. In addition using vectorised functions (especially basic stuff like +, -, ...) is much much much faster than looping over elements.
# define function that does subtraction
sub <- function(x){
x - 2
}
# define vector with numbers ranging from 1 to 20
my_vector <- 1:20
# call function with my_vector as argument
sub(my_vector)
In regard to your error:
Error in sub(x) : argument "x" is missing, with no default.
It is telling you that you called a function sub() without providing an appropriate value for its argument x. Since you did not provide it, and there is no default, and it cannot find it otherwise R does not know what to do and signals (throws) an error.
I can reproduce your error like so:
# call sub without argument
sub()
## Error in sub() : argument "x" is missing, with no default
I can prevent it by providing a value for argument x, like so:
# call sub with value for x
sub(1)
sub(x = 1)
... Or I can provide defaults like this:
# define function with default values
sub <- function(x = NULL){
x - 2
}
# call new 'robust' sub() function without arguments
sub()
## numeric(0)
... Or I can provide defaults like this:
# define function with default values
sub <- function(x){
if ( missing(x) ){
x <- NULL
}
x - 2
}
# call new 'robust' sub() function without arguments
sub()
## numeric(0)
Resources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4fMccWy5lU
https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~statcur/Workshop2/Presentations/functions.pdf
http://adv-r.had.co.nz/Functions.html
?`function`
https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-patched/R-intro.html#Writing-your-own-functions
I suppose you forgot to run your function definition:
sub2 <- function(x)
{
for(i in 1:length(x))
{
x[i] = x[i]-2
}
return(x)
}
sub2(1:4) ## works fine
sub(1:4) ## Error calling the function sub(pattern, replacement, x, ...)
Error in sub(1:4) : argument "x" is missing, with no default
or
> x1 <- 1:4
> sub(x1) ## Error
Error in sub(x1) : argument "x" is missing, with no default
If you would have choosen another name for your function (not a name of an existing R-function) the message is clear (to run in a new R-session):
# sub2 <- function(x)
# {
# for(i in 1:length(x))
# {
# x[i] = x[i]-2
# }
# return(x)
# }
sub2(1:4)
# > sub2(1:4)
# Error in sub2(1:4) : could not find function "sub2"
I commented out the function definition to simulate not running of the function definition
Imagine you have a simple function that specifies which statistical tests to run for each variable. Its syntax, simplified for the purposes of this question is as follows:
test <- function(...) {
x <- list(...)
return(x)
}
which takes argument pairs such as Gender = 'Tukey', and intends to pass its result to other functions down the line. The output of test() is as follows:
test(Gender = 'Tukey')
# $Gender
# [1] "Tukey"
What is desired is the ability to replace the literal Gender by a dynamically assigned variable varname (e.g., for looping purposes). Currently what happens is:
varname <- 'Gender'
test(varname = 'Tukey')
# $varname
# [1] "Tukey"
but what is desired is this:
varname <- 'Gender'
test(varname = 'Tukey')
# $Gender
# [1] "Tukey"
I tried tinkering with functions such as eval() and parse(), but to no avail. In practice, I resolved the issue by simply renaming the resulting list, but it is an ugly solution and I am sure there is an elegant R way to achieve it. Thank in advance for the educational value of your answer.
NB: This question occurred to me while trying to program a custom function which uses mcp() from the effects package in its internals. The said mcp() function is the real world counterpart of test().
EDIT1: Perhaps it needs to be clarified that (for educational purposes) changing test() is not an option. The question is about how to pass the tricky argument to test(). If you take a look at NB, it becomes clear why: the real world counterpart of test(), namely mcp(), comes with a package. And while it is possible to create a modified copy of it, I am really curious whether there exists a simple solution in somehow 'converting' the dynamically assigned variable to a literal in the context of dot-arguments.
This works:
test <- function(...) {
x = list(...)
names(x) <- sapply(names(x),
function(p) eval(as.symbol(p)))
return(x)
}
apple = "orange"
test(apple = 5)
We can use
test <- function(...) {
x <- list(...)
if(exists(names(x))) names(x) <- get(names(x))
x
}
test(Gender = 'Tukey')
#$Gender
#[1] "Tukey"
test(varname = 'Tukey')
#$Gender
#[1] "Tukey"
What about this:
varname <- "Gender"
args <- list()
args[[varname]] <- "Tukey"
do.call(test, args)
How can I tell R to use the default value of a function argument without i) omitting the argument in the function call and ii) without knowing what the default value is?
I know I can use the default value of mean in rnorm():
rnorm(n = 100) # by omitting the argument
# or
rnorm(n = 100, mean = 0) # by including it in the call with the default value
But assume I don't know the default value but want to include it explicitly in the function call. How can I achieve that?
You can access the argument list and default values via:
> formals(rnorm)
$n
$mean
[1] 0
$sd
[1] 1
formals("rnorm") also works. Some simple examples:
> rnorm(10,mean = formals(rnorm)$mean)
[1] -0.5376897 0.4372421 0.3449424 -0.9569394 -1.1459726 -0.6109554 0.1907090 0.2991381 -0.2713715
[10] -1.4462570
> rnorm(10,mean = formals(rnorm)$mean + 3)
[1] 2.701544 2.863189 1.709289 2.987687 2.848045 5.136735 2.559616 3.827967 3.079658 5.016970
Obviously, you could store the result of formals(rnorm) ahead of time as well.
As #joran has already pointed out, formals() exposes the default values. However, as I understand the question, what you're really after is the construction of the call expression. To that end, it is useful to combine formals() with as.call() to produce the call itself. The following function does just that, by producing a function that produces "argument-completed calls," for a given function name f:
drop_missing <- function(sig) {
sig[!sapply(sig, identical, quote(expr =))]
}
complete_call <- function(f) {
nm <- as.name(f)
sig <- formals(args(f))
make_call <- function() {
args <- match.call()[-1]
sig[names(args)] <- args
as.call(c(nm, drop_missing(sig)))
}
formals(make_call) <- sig
make_call
}
Example usage:
complete_call("log")(1)
#> log(x = 1, base = exp(1))
complete_call("rnorm")(10)
#> rnorm(n = 10, mean = 0, sd = 1)
complete_call("rnorm")()
#> rnorm(mean = 0, sd = 1)
Remarks:
1) The output is a language object. To execute the call, you need to evaluate it, e.g.,
eval(complete_call("rnorm")(10))
#> [1] -0.89428324 -1.78405483 -1.83972728 ... (output truncated)
2) If you want complete_call() to accept a function, rather than the name of a function, you could write nm <- as.name(deparse(substitute(f))) in place of the given assignment. However, that would not work in a nested call, where you would get as.name("f") for nm, because of R's rules fo lexical scoping.
3) Without the call to args() in the assignment of sig, complete_call() would only work for closures, since primitive and builtin functions don't have formals.
The function testfun1, defined below, does what I want it to do. (For the reasoning of all this, see the background info below the code example.) The question I wanted to ask you is why what I tried in testfun2 doesn't work. To me, both appear to be doing the exact same thing. As shown by the print in testfun2, the evaluation of the helper function inside testfun2 takes place in the correct environment, but the variables from the main function environment get magically passed to the helper function in testfun1, but not in testfun2. Does anyone of you know why?
helpfun <- function(){
x <- x^2 + y^2
}
testfun1 <- function(x,y){
xy <- x*y
environment(helpfun) <- sys.frame(sys.nframe())
x <- eval(as.call(c(as.symbol("helpfun"))))
return(list(x=x,xy=xy))
}
testfun1(x = 2,y = 1:3)
## works as intended
eval.here <- function(fun){
environment(fun) <- parent.frame()
print(environment(fun))
eval(as.call(c(as.symbol(fun))))
}
testfun2 <- function(x,y){
print(sys.frame(sys.nframe()))
xy <- x*y
x <- eval.here("helpfun")
return(list(x=x,xy=xy))
}
testfun2(x = 2,y = 1:3)
## helpfun can't find variable 'x' despite having the same environment as in testfun1...
Background info: I have a large R code in which I want to call helperfunctions inside my main function. They alter variables of the main function environment. The purpose of all this is mainly to unclutter my code. (Main function code is currently over 2000 lines, with many calls to various helperfunctions which themselves are 40-150 lines long...)
Note that the number of arguments to my helper functions is very high, so that the traditional explicit passing of function arguments ( "helpfun(arg1 = arg1, arg2 = arg2, ... , arg50 = arg50)") would be cumbersome and doesnt yield the uncluttering of the code that I am aiming for. Therefore, I need to pass the variables from the parent frame to the helper functions anonymously.
Use this instead:
eval.here <- function(fun){
fun <- get(fun)
environment(fun) <- parent.frame()
print(environment(fun))
fun()
}
Result:
> testfun2(x = 2,y = 1:3)
<environment: 0x0000000013da47a8>
<environment: 0x0000000013da47a8>
$x
[1] 5 8 13
$xy
[1] 2 4 6