Calling print(ls.str()) in function affect behavior of rep - r

Question

Begin a new R session with an empty environment. Write a series of functions with a parameter that is to be used as the value of the times parameter in a call to rep().
f <- function(n) {
rep("hello", times = n)
}
f(x)
One expect this to fail, and indeed one gets:
# Error in f(x) : object 'x' not found
Modify the function a bit:
f2 <- function(n) {
ls.str()
rep("hello", times = n)
}
f2(x)
As expected, it still fails:
# Error in f2(x) : object 'x' not found
Modify a bit more (to see the environment in the console):
f3 <- function(n) {
print(ls.str())
rep("hello", times = n)
}
f3(x)
I still expect failure, but instead get:
## n : <missing>
## [1] "hello"
It is as if the call to print() makes rep work as though times were set to 1.

Answer 1

This is not an answer, but too long to post as a comment. A minimal reproducible example is:
f3 <- function(n) {
try(get("n", environment(), inherits=FALSE))
rep("hello", times = n)
}
f3(x)
## Error in get("n", environment(), inherits = FALSE) : object 'x' not found
## [1] "hello"
The following is speculative and based on loosely examining the source for do_rep. get starts the promise evaluation, but upon not finding the "missing" symbol appears to leave the promise partially unevaluated. rep, being a primitive, then attempts to operate on n without realizing that it is a partially evaluated promise and basically that leads implicitly to the assumption that 'n == 1'.
Also, this shows that the promise is in a weird state (have to use browser/debug to see it):
f3a <- function(n) {
try(get("n", environment(), inherits=FALSE))
browser()
rep("hello", times = n)
}
f3a(x)
## Error in get("n", environment(), inherits = FALSE) : object 'x' not found
## Called from: f3a(x)
# Browse[1]> (n)
## Error: object 'x' not found
## In addition: Warning message:
## restarting interrupted promise evaluation
## Browse[1]> c
## [1] "hello"

Answer 2

I received earlier today a report that the bug has been fixed in R-devel and R-patched.
The issue was that the test for missingness in the R sources did not consider the case of an interrupted promise evaluation. A fix has been committed by Luke Tierney and can be seen on GitHub.

Answer 3

f4 <- function(n) {
print('test')
print(ls.str())
print('end test')
rep("hello", times = n)
}
f4(x)
## [1] "test"
## n : <missing>
## [1] "end test"
## [1] "hello"
There's something within print.ls_str, from Frank's test on chat the follwing code exhibit the same problem:
f6 <- function(n) {
z = tryCatch(get("n", new.env(), mode = "any"), error = function(e) e)
rep("A", n)
}
Digging a little inside R source I found the following code
# define GET_VALUE(rval) \
/* We need to evaluate if it is a promise */ \
if (TYPEOF(rval) == PROMSXP) { \
PROTECT(rval); \
rval = eval(rval, genv); \
UNPROTECT(1); \
} \
\
if (!ISNULL(rval) && NAMED(rval) == 0) \
SET_NAMED(rval, 1)
GET_VALUE(rval);
break;
case 2: // get0(.)
if (rval == R_UnboundValue)
return CAD4R(args);// i.e. value_if_not_exists
GET_VALUE(rval);
break;
}
return rval;
}
#undef GET_VALUE
I'm quite surprised this compile properly, as far as I remember (my C is quite far behind) #define doesn't allow spaces between the # and define.
After digging for that, I'm wrong, from gcc doc:
Whitespace is also allowed before and after the `#'.
So there's probably something around this part of code, but that's above my head to pinpoint what exactly.