change argument names inside a function r - r

Question

I'm trying to adjust the names of an argument inside a function. I want to create a procedure that takes the body of a function, looks for x, changes every x into x0, and then restores the function to what it was before. To provide an example:
f = function(x, y) -x^2 + x + -y^2 + y
# Take old names
form_old = names(formals(f))
# Make new names
form_new = paste0(form_old, 0)
# Give f new formals
formals(f) = setNames(vector("list", length(form_new)), form_new)
# Copy function body
bod = as.list(body(f))
for (i in 1:length(form_new)) {
bod = gsub(form_old[i], form_new[i], bod)
}
# return from list to call ?
body(f) = as.call(list(bod))
f(1, 1) # produces an error
So far, this code will change all variable names from x to x0 and from y to y0. However, the final output of bod is a character vector and not a call. How can I now change this back to a call?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Surely there is a better way to do what you are trying to do that doesn't require modifying functions. That being said, you definetly don't want to be replacing variables by regular expressions, that could have all sorts of problems. Generally, trying to manipulate code as strings is going to lead to problems, for example, a function like tricky <- function(x, y) { tst <- "x + y"; -xx*x + yy*y }, where there are strings and variable names overlap, will lead to the wrong results.
Here is a function that takes a recursive approach (Recall) to traverse the expression tree (recursion could be avoided using a 'stack' type structure, but it seems more difficult to me).
## Function to replace variables in function body
## expr is `body(f)`, keyvals is a lookup table for replacements
rep_vars <- function(expr, keyvals) {
if (!length(expr)) return()
for (i in seq_along(expr)) {
if (is.call(expr[[i]])) expr[[i]][-1L] <- Recall(expr[[i]][-1L], keyvals)
if (is.name(expr[[i]]) && deparse(expr[[i]]) %in% names(keyvals))
expr[[i]] <- as.name(keyvals[[deparse(expr[[i]])]])
}
return( expr )
}
## Test it
f <- function(x, y) -x^2 + x + -y^2 + y
newvals <- c('x'='x0', 'y'='y0') # named lookup vector
newbod <- rep_vars(body(f), newvals)
newbod
# -x0^2 + x0 + -y0^2 + y0
## Rename the formals, and update the body
formals(f) <- pairlist(x0=bquote(), y0=bquote())
body(f) <- newbod
## The new 'f'
f
# function (x0, y0)
# -x0^2 + x0 + -y0^2 + y0
f(2, 2)
# [1] -4
With a more difficult function, where you want to avoid modifying strings or the other variables named yy and xx for example,
tricky <- function(x, y) { tst <- "x + y"; -xx*x + yy*y }
formals(tricky) <- pairlist(x0=bquote(), y0=bquote())
body(tricky) <- rep_vars(body(tricky), newvals)
tricky
# function (x0, y0)
# {
# tst <- "x + y"
# -xx * x0 + yy * y0
# }
#

Answer 2

There are a few ways to go here. Following your code, I would go with something like this:
f = function(x, y) -x^2 + x + -y^2 + y
# Take old names
form_old = names(formals(f))
# Make new names
form_new = paste0(form_old, 0)
deparse(body(f)) -> bod
for (i in 1:length(form_new)) {
bod = gsub(form_old[i], form_new[i], bod, fixed = TRUE)
}
formals(f) = setNames(vector("list", length(form_new)), form_new)
body(f) <- parse(text = bod)
f(1, 1)