I have lots of characters those are actually function definitions. How can I use that characters to execute those function?
The characters I have is as follows:
foo1 <- "function(p1,p2){, v <- 2, print(\"value is \"), print(v)}"
foo2 <- "function(){, cName <- .Call(\"companyNames\"), return(cName)}"
foo3 <- "function(tickers,field,date){,df<-data.frame(Ticker = tickers, Field = field, Date = date), return(df)}"
...etc
I need a general method to execute to all these functions.
EDIT: You've changed your question, so I've amended my answer:
do.call(eval(parse(text=foo1)), list())
You can add a named list to each of those functions in the place of list(). But frankly, what you're attempting is bordering on the absurd. I have no idea how you got into a position where you would need these kinds of tools. You're going to have all kinds of scoping problems from here on in.
Old solution:
fun <- eval(parse(text="function(p1,p2){v <- 2; print(paste0(\"value is \", v))}"))
fun()
## [1] "value is 2"
Related
I'd like to capture all arguments and values and return a named list. I'm having trouble with a situation where the value supplied is a function call.
The following produces an object of class "call", which is inconvenient to me, because I want to call paste on it:
fun1 = function(a = 1) as.list(match.call()[-1])
value1 = fun1(a = letters[1:2])
class(value1[[1]])
[1] "call"
paste(value1[[1]], collapse = " - ")
[1] "[ - letters - 1:2" #not useful to me
As a workaround, I can call eval to get the character vector created by c (the lapply function is there to illustrate that when having multiple arguments, eval would be called on all of them):
fun2 = function(a = 1) lapply(as.list(match.call()[-1]), eval)
value2 = fun2(a = letters[1:2])
class(value2[[1]])
[1] "character"
paste(value2[[1]], collapse = " - ")
[1] "a - b" #that's what I want
Is there a better way to do this? Calling eval on a bunch of things just to get the values seems a bit weird to me.
EDIT: The idea behind this is that I would like to pass a list of arguments to a function (which accepts a named list for one of it's arguments) within the original function. I'd like to capture values provided by the user, and default ones (for arguments where the user did not provide anything).
I learned elsewhere that I can get all of that by a combination of match.call and formals. But then, say I need to pass that to the query argument of the httr::GET function, and do some processing on it before I do so (such as adding " - " between "a" and "b"). I then end up with something like "[ - letters - 1:2" instead of "a - b".
I sense that if the answer is using eval, then I am probably asking the wrong question.
I sense that you are looking for something more general, so not sure if this is entirely what you are looking for but its simpler and gives you the desired result. The critical piece here is do.call()
fun1 = function(a = 1) {
L1 <- as.list(match.call())
do.call(paste0, list(L1$a, sep="", collapse=" - "))
}
value1 = fun1(a = letters[1:2])
Well, I think you need to decide which part of your code needs evaluation and what needs not.
It's not entirely clear from your example how general you want to go, but your example-question can be solved by a simple list(), you only need a custom function for providing defaults:
myfun <- function(a=1) list(a=a)
value <- myfun(a=letters[1:2]))
paste(value[[1]], collapse = " - ")
# Basically: value <- list(a=letters[1:2])), or paste(letters[1:2], collapse= " - ")
Generally, you use match.call() without any arguments to find out in what way your function was called. Sometimes it's useful to know whether fun(a=c('a', 'b')) was called, or fun1(a = letters[1:2]), so match.call tells you this, without evaluating anything.
So if you want to actually do something with your arguments, just call them directly, and you can later pass them on to another function
mypaste <- function(..., sep=' -CustomSep- ', collapse=' -Mycollapse- ', prefix='Value:') {
if(length(list(...))>0) {
paste(prefix, ..., sep=sep, collapse=collapse)
} else {
text <- character(0)
}
}
This function is just a variation on paste, but you can make it extensive as you want.
And I get the impression that you want a general case where you match your arguments to the arguments of another function, but to answer that question I'd need to know more about what exactly you are trying to accomplish.
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)
I am trying to understand names, lists and lists of lists in R. It would be convenient to have a way to dynamically label them like this:
> ll <- list("1" = 2)
> ll
$`1`
[1] 2
But this is not working:
> ll <- list(as.character(1) = 2)
Error: unexpected '=' in "ll <- list(as.character(1) ="
Neither is this:
> ll <- list(paste(1) = 2)
Error: unexpected '=' in "ll <- list(paste(1) ="
Why is that? Both paste() and as.character() are returning "1".
The reason is that paste(1) is a function call that evaluates to a string, not a string itself.
The The R Language Definition says this:
Each argument can be tagged (tag=expr), or just be a simple expression.
It can also be empty or it can be one of the special tokens ‘...’, ‘..2’, etc.
A tag can be an identifier or a text string.
Thus, tags can't be expressions.
However, if you want to set names (which are just an attribute), you can do so with structure, eg
> structure(1:5, names=LETTERS[1:5])
A B C D E
1 2 3 4 5
Here, LETTERS[1:5] is most definitely an expression.
If your goal is simply to use integers as names (as in the question title), you can type them in with backticks or single- or double-quotes (as the OP already knows). They are converted to characters, since all names are characters in R.
I can't offer a deep technical explanation for why your later code fails beyond "the left-hand side of = is not evaluated in that context (of enumerating items in a list)". Here's one workaround:
mylist <- list()
mylist[[paste("a")]] <- 2
mylist[[paste("b")]] <- 3
mylist[[paste("c")]] <- matrix(1:4,ncol=2)
mylist[[paste("d")]] <- mean
And here's another:
library(data.table)
tmp <- rbindlist(list(
list(paste("a"), list(2)),
list(paste("b"), list(3)),
list(paste("c"), list(matrix(1:4,ncol=2))),
list(paste("d"), list(mean))
))
res <- setNames(tmp$V2,tmp$V1)
identical(mylist,res) # TRUE
The drawbacks of each approach are pretty serious, I think. On the other hand, I've never found myself in need of richer naming syntax.
My problem is as follows: I'm trying to write a function that sets a collection of attributes on an object in a given environment. I'm trying to mimic a metadata layer, like SAS does, so you can set various attributes on a variable, like label, decimal places, date format, and many others.
Example:
SetAttributes(object = "list$dataframe$column", label="A label", width=20, decDigits=2,
dateTimeFormat="....", env=environment())
But I have to set attributes on different levels of objects, say:
comment(list$dataframe$column) <- "comment on a column of a dataframe in a list"
comment(dataframe$column) <- "comment on a column of a dataframe"
comment(list) <- "comment on a list/dataframe/vector"
Alternatively it can be done like this:
comment("env[[list]][[dataframe]][[column]]) <- "text"
# (my function recognizes both formats, as a variable and as a string with chain of
# [[]] components).
So I have implemented it this way:
SetAttributes <- function(varDescription, label="", .........., env=.GlobalEnv) {
parts <- strsplit( varDescription, "$", fixed=TRUE)[[1]]
if(length(parts) == 3) {
lst <- parts[1]
df <- parts[2]
col <- parts[3]
if(!is.na(label)) comment(env[[lst]][[df]][[col]]) <- label
if(!is.na(textWidth)) attr(env[[lst]][[df]][[col]], "width") <- textWidth
....
} else if(length(parts) == 2) {
df <- varTxtComponents[1]
col <- varTxtComponents[2]
if(!is.na(label)) comment(env[[df]][[col]]) <- label
if(!is.na(textWidth)) attr(env[[df]][[col]], "width") <- textWidth
....
} else if(length(parts) == 1) {
....
You see the problem now: I have three blocks of similar code for length(parts) == 3, 2 and 1
When I tried to automatize it this way:
path <- c()
sapply(parts, FUN=function(comp){ path <<- paste0(path, "[[", comp, "]]") )}
comment(eval(parse(text=paste0(".GlobalEnv", path)))) <- "a comment"
I've got an error:
Error in comment(eval(parse(text = paste0(".GlobalEnv", path)))) <- "a comment" :
target of assignment expands to non-language object
Is there any way to get an object on any level and set attributes for it not having a lot of repeated code?
PS: yes, I heard thousand times that changing external variables from inside a function is an evil, so please don't mention it. I know what I want to achieve.
Just to make sure you hear it 1001 times, it's a very bad idea for a function to have side effects like this. This is a very un R-like way to program something like this. If you're going to write R code, it's better to do things the R way. This means returning modified objects that can optionally be reassigned. This would make life much easier.
Here's a simplified version which only focuses on the comment.
SetComment <- function(varDescription, label=NULL, env=.GlobalEnv) {
obj <- parse(text= varDescription)[[1]]
eval(substitute(comment(X)<-Y, list(X=obj, Y=label)), env)
}
a<-list(b=4)
comment(a$b)
# NULL
SetComment("a$b", "check")
comment(a$b)
# [1] "check"
Here, rather than parsing and splitting the string, we build an expression that we evaluate in the proper context. We use substitute() to pop in the values you want to the actual call.
I want to do the same as explained here, i.e. adding missing rows to a data.table. The only additional difficulty I'm facing is that I want the number of key columns, i.e. those rows that are used for the self-join, to be flexible.
Here is a small example that basically repeats what is done in the link mentioned above:
df <- data.frame(fundID = rep(letters[1:4], each=6),
cfType = rep(c("D", "D", "T", "T", "R", "R"), times=4),
variable = rep(c(1,3), times=12),
value = 1:24)
DT <- as.data.table(df)
idCols <- c("fundID", "cfType")
setkeyv(DT, c(idCols, "variable"))
DT[CJ(unique(df$fundID), unique(df$cfType), seq(from=min(variable), to=max(variable))), nomatch=NA]
What bothers me is the last line. I want idCols to be flexible (for instance if I use it within a function), so I don't want to type unique(df$fundID), unique(df$cfType) manually. However, I just don't find any workaround for this. All my attempts to automatically split the subset of df into vectors, as needed by CJ, fail with the error message Error in setkeyv(x, cols, verbose = verbose) : Column 'V1' is type 'list' which is not (currently) allowed as a key column type.
CJ(sapply(df[, idCols], unique))
CJ(unique(df[, idCols]))
CJ(as.vector(unique(df[, idCols])))
CJ(unique(DT[, idCols, with=FALSE]))
I also tried building the expression myself:
str <- ""
for (i in idCols) {
str <- paste0(str, "unique(df$", i, "), ")
}
str <- paste0(str, "seq(from=min(variable), to=max(variable))")
str
[1] "unique(df$fundID), unique(df$cfType), seq(from=min(variable), to=max(variable))"
But then I don't know how to use str. This all fails:
CJ(eval(str))
CJ(substitute(str))
CJ(call(str))
Does anyone know a good workaround?
Michael's answer is great. do.call is indeed needed to call CJ flexibly in that way, afaik.
To clear up on the expression building approach and starting with your code, but removing the df$ parts (not needed and not done in the linked answer, since i is evaluated within the scope of DT) :
str <- ""
for (i in idCols) {
str <- paste0(str, "unique(", i, "), ")
}
str <- paste0(str, "seq(from=min(variable), to=max(variable))")
str
[1] "unique(fundID), unique(cfType), seq(from=min(variable), to=max(variable))"
then it's :
expr <- parse(text=paste0("CJ(",str,")"))
DT[eval(expr),nomatch=NA]
or alternatively build and eval the whole query dynamically :
eval(parse(text=paste0("DT[CJ(",str,"),nomatch=NA")))
And if this is done a lot then it may be worth creating yourself a helper function :
E = function(...) eval(parse(text=paste0(...)))
to reduce it to :
E("DT[CJ(",str,"),nomatch=NA")
I've never used the data.table package, so forgive me if I miss the mark here, but I think I've got it. There's a lot going on here. Start by reading up on do.call, which allows you to evaluate any function in a sort of non-traditional manner where arguments are specified by a supplied list (where each element is in the list is positionally matched to the function arguments unless explicitly named). Also notice that I had to specify min(df$variable) instead of just min(variable). Read Hadley's page on scoping to get an idea of the issue here.
CJargs <- lapply(df[, idCols], unique)
names(CJargs) <- NULL
CJargs[[length(CJargs) +1]] <- seq(from=min(df$variable), to=max(df$variable))
DT[do.call("CJ", CJargs),nomatch=NA]