Can't access vector elements in a for loop - r

Let's say I have two vectors:
a1=c("a","b")
a2=c("x","y")
Now in a 'for' loop, I want to access the first element of each vector:
for(i in c(a1,a2)) {
print(i[1])
}
If I run the above code, I get:
[1] "a"
[1] "b"
[1] "x"
[1] "y"
But I just want:
[1] "a"
[1] "x"
More surprisingly, if I want to access the second element:
for(i in c(a1,a2)) {
print(i[2])
}
I get:
[1] "NA"
[1] "NA"
[1] "NA"
[1] "NA"
Any help will be highly appreciated.

Because c(a1, a2) = c("a","b","x","y") -- passing multiple atomic vectors to c causes them to get collapsed. Use list(a1, a2) in the loop instead.

Related

Change the null values ​of multiple lists that only differ by a number

I want to change the null values ​​of multiple lists that only differ by a number. In this example I have 3 lists: "a1", "a2" and "a3", and I want to change their null values for "THERE'S NO VALUE". I've tried with a for loop using "paste" function, but it doesn't run. This is a simplied version of my code:
a1<-list(NULL, "a","b")
a2<-list("d", NULL,"m")
a3<-list("k", NULL,"l")
for (i in 1:3){
var<-paste("a", i, sep = "")
var[var=='NULL']<-"THERE'S NO VALUE"
}
Also I've tried with assign function, but It changes all variables, and I only want to change the null element of each one (I suspect why, but I don't know how to change the function to work):
for (i in 1:3){
var<-paste("a", i, sep = "")
assign(var,var[var=='NULL']<-"THERE'S NO VALUE")
}
Thanks in advance.
We use mget to get the objects in a list, then loop over the list with lapply, replace the elements that are NULL with the new value and then if needed, use list2env to change the object values in the global env
list2env(lapply(mget(paste0("a", 1:3)), function(x) {
x[sapply(x, is.null)] <- "THERE'S NO VALUE"
x}),
.GlobalEnv)
-Now check the objects
a1
[[1]]
[1] "THERE'S NO VALUE"
[[2]]
[1] "a"
[[3]]
[1] "b"
a2
[[1]]
[1] "d"
[[2]]
[1] "THERE'S NO VALUE"
[[3]]
[1] "m"
a3
[[1]]
[1] "k"
[[2]]
[1] "THERE'S NO VALUE"
[[3]]
[1] "l"

How To Add Characters Around Elements

I am using R and want to covert following:
"A,B"
to
"A","B" OR 'A','B'
I tried str_replace(), but that's not working out.
Please suggest, thanks.
Update
I tried the suggested answer by d.b. Though it works, but I didn't realize that I should have shared that, I am going to use above solution for vector. I need the values in data with "A,B" to split in order to use it as a vector.
Using strsplit
> data
[1] "A,B"
> test <- strsplit(x = data, split = ",")
> test
[[1]]
[1] "A" "B"
above test won't be useful because I can't use it for following:
> output_1 <- c(test)
> outputFinalData <- outputFinal[outputFinal$Column %in% output_1,]
outputFinalData is empty with above process. But is not empty when I do:
> output_2 <- c("A", "B")
> outputFinalData <- outputFinal[outputFinal$Column %in% output_2,]
Also, output_1 and output_2 are not same:
> output_1
[[1]]
[1] "Bin_14" "Bin_15"
> output_2
[1] "Bin_14" "Bin_15"
> output_1 == output_2
[1] FALSE FALSE
Use strsplit:
> data = "A,B"
> strsplit(x=data,split=",")
[[1]]
[1] "A" "B"
Note that it returns a list with a vector. The list is length one because you asked it to split one string. If you ask it to split two strings you get a list of length 2:
> data = c("A,B","Foo,bar")
> strsplit(x=data,split=",")
[[1]]
[1] "A" "B"
[[2]]
[1] "Foo" "bar"
So if you know you are only going to have one thing to split you can get a vector of the parts by taking the first element:
> data = "A,B"
> strsplit(x=data,split=",")[[1]]
[1] "A" "B"
However it might be more efficient to do a load of splits in one go and put the bits in a matrix. As long as you can be sure everything splits into the same number of parts, then something like:
> data = c("A,B","Foo,bar","p1,p2")
> do.call(rbind,(strsplit(x=data,split=",")))
[,1] [,2]
[1,] "A" "B"
[2,] "Foo" "bar"
[3,] "p1" "p2"
>
Gets you the two parts in columns of a matrix that you can then add to a data frame if that's what you need.

R doubling list length when subsetting

I am currently trying to subset a list in R from a dataframe. My current attempt looks like:
list.level <- unique(buckets$group)
bucket.group <- vector("list",length(list.level))
for(i in list.level){
bucket.group[[i]] <- subset(buckets$group,buckets$group == i)
}
However, instead of filling the list it seems to create a duplicate list of the same amount of rows, returning:
[[1]]
NULL
[[2]]
NULL
...
NULL
[[22]]
NULL
[[23]]
NULL
$A
[1] "A"
$C
[1] "C" "C" "C"
$D
[1] "D" "D" "D"
...
$AJ
[1] "AJ" "AJ" "AJ" "AJ" "AJ"
$AK
[1] "AK" "AK"
A should be filling into 1, C into 2, etc. etc. How do I get these to fill in the original rows rather than creating extra rows at the bottom of the list?
Here is what is going on. Suppose your buckets$group is c("a","a","b","b").
list.level <- unique(buckets$group)
Now list.level is c("a","b")
bucket.group <- vector("list",length(list.level))
Since length(list.level) is 2, now your bucket.group is a list of 2 NULL elements, their names are 1 and 2.
for(i in list.level){
Recalling the value of list.level, it is the same as for i in c("a","b").
bucket.group[[i]] <- subset(buckets$group,buckets$group == i)
Since i loops over "a" and "b", you now fill bucket.group[["a"]] and bucket.group[["b"]], while bucket.group[[1]] and bucket.group[[2]] remain intact.
To fix this, you should write instead
list.level <- unique(buckets$group) # ok, this was correct
bucket.group <- list() # just empty list
for(i in 1:length(list.level)){
bucket.group[[i]] <- buckets$group[buckets$group == list.level[[i]] ]
}
I think the issue is with your for statement.
Your code is like this:
list.level<-letters[1:10]
> for(i in list.level) print(i)
[1] "a"
[1] "b"
[1] "c"
[1] "d"
[1] "e"
[1] "f"
[1] "g"
[1] "h"
[1] "i"
[1] "j"
It assigns each element in list.level to i, so i is a letter. When you do
bucket.group[[i]] <- subset(buckets$group,buckets$group == i)
in the first iteration, i is a letter. So it looks for a list element called bucket.group[["a"]] and does not find it, so it creates it and stores the data there. If instead you use seq_along
for(i in seq_along(list.level)) print(i)
[1] 1
[1] 2
[1] 3
[1] 4
[1] 5
[1] 6
[1] 7
[1] 8
[1] 9
[1] 10
now i will alway be a number and the code will do what you want.
So use seq_along instead.
this should work:
list.level <- unique(buckets$group)
bucket.group <- vector("list",length(list.level))
for(i in 1:length(list.level)){
bucket.group[[i]] <- subset(buckets$group,buckets$group == list.level[i])
}

grab element of a list R

Hi I have the following data structure:
typeof(snp.seq)
[1] "list"
typeof(snp.seq[1])
[1] "list"
snp.seq[[1]]
[1]"MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWN DPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKSPMLNLFQEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ"
typeof(snp.seq[[1]])
"character"
> dput(snp.seq)
list("MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKSPMLNLFQEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKGPV",
"MDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ")
where snp.seq is of type list, and each element of snp.seq is also a list - as demonstrated in the example.
What I need to do is to specify a number, and return the corresponding letter from the sequence in snp.seq[[1]].
i.e. position 1 is the letter 'M'
I have tried to call it by doing
snp.seq[[1,1]]]
snp.seq[[1],[1]]
of which both do not work as they are calling a position which is out of bounds.
How would I call any letter by giving a number (it's position in the sequence)?
Thanks
With the data in your example -
snp.seq <- list("MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKSPMLNLFQEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKGPV",
"MDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ")
##
getLetter <- function(elem,pos){
if(pos > nchar(snp.seq[[elem]])){
stop("Position argument exceeds sequence length")
} else {
substr(snp.seq[[elem]],pos,pos)
}
}
##
So to get the first letter for the first three elements in snp.seq, you would do
> getLetter(1,1)
[1] "M"
> getLetter(2,1)
[1] "M"
> getLetter(3,1)
[1] "M"
> substr(snp.seq[[1]],1,3)
[1] "MYS"
> substr(snp.seq[[2]],1,3)
[1] "MYS"
> substr(snp.seq[[3]],1,3)
[1] "MDY"
(sampling the first few letters of these elements to validate).
You could use letter from Biostrings
library(Biostrings)
letter(snp.seq[[1]], 1)
#[1] "M"
letter(snp.seq[[3]], 3:1)
#[1] "YDM"
letter(snp.seq[[5]], 5:10)
#[1] "NTLRLY"
Try:
snp.seq <- list("MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKSPMLNLFQEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKGPV",
"MDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ",
"MYSFNTLRLYLWETIVFFSLAASKEAEAARSAPKPMSPSDFLDKLMGRTSGYDARIRPNFKGPPVNVSCNIFINSFGSIAETTMDYRVNIFLRQQWNDPRLAYNEYPDDSLDLDPSMLDSIWKPDLFFANEKGAHFHEITTDNKLLRISRNGNVLYSIRITLTLACPMDLKNFPMDVQTCIMQLESFGYTMNDLIFEWQEQGAVQVADGLTLPQFILKEEKDLRYCTKHYNTGKFTCIEARFHLERQMGYYLIQMYIPSLLIVILSWISFWINMDAAPARVGLGITTVLTMTTQSSGSRASLPKVSYVKAIDIWMAVCLLFVFSALLEYAAVNFVSRQHKELLRFRRKRRHHKEDEAGEGRFNFSAYGMGPACLQAKDGISVKGANNSNTTNPPPAPSKSPEEMRKLFIQRAKKIDKISRIGFPMAFLIFNMFYWIIYKIVRREDVHNQ")
##
uls = unlist(snp.seq)
substr(uls,1,1)
[1] "M" "M" "M" "M" "M"
substr(uls,1,2)
[1] "MY" "MY" "MD" "MD" "MY"
substr(uls,3,5)
[1] "SFN" "SFN" "YRV" "YRV" "SFN"

How do I apply an index vector over a list of vectors?

I want to apply a long index vector (50+ non-sequential integers) to a long list of vectors (50+ character vectors containing 100+ names) in order to retrieve specific values (as a list, vector, or data frame).
A simplified example is below:
> my.list <- list(c("a","b","c"),c("d","e","f"))
> my.index <- 2:3
Desired Output
[[1]]
[1] "b"
[[2]]
[1] "f"
##or
[1] "b"
[1] "f"
##or
[1] "b" "f"
I know I can get the same value from each element using:
> lapply(my.list, function(x) x[2])
##or
> lapply(my.list,'[', 2)
I can pull the second and third values from each element by:
> lapply(my.list,'[', my.index)
[[1]]
[1] "b" "c"
[[2]]
[1] "e" "f"
##or
> for(j in my.index) for(i in seq_along(my.list)) print(my.list[[i]][[j]])
[1] "b"
[1] "e"
[1] "c"
[1] "f"
I don't know how to pull just the one value from each element.
I've been looking for a few days and haven't found any examples of this being done, but it seems fairly straight forward. Am I missing something obvious here?
Thank you,
Scott
Whenever you have a problem that is like lapply but involves multiple parallel lists/vectors, consider Map or mapply (Map simply being a wrapper around mapply with SIMPLIFY=FALSE hardcoded).
Try this:
Map("[",my.list,my.index)
#[[1]]
#[1] "b"
#
#[[2]]
#[1] "f"
..or:
mapply("[",my.list,my.index)
#[1] "b" "f"

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