is.na() in R for loop not quite understood - r

Question

I am confused by the behavior of is.na() in a for loop in R.
I am trying to make a function that will create a sequence of numbers, do something to a matrix, summarize the resulting matrix based on the sequence of numbers, then modify the sequence of numbers based on the summary and repeat. I made a simple version of my function because I think it still gets at my problem.
library(plyr)
test <- function(desired.iterations, max.iterations)
{
rich.seq <- 4:34 ##make a sequence of numbers
details.table <- matrix(nrow=length(rich.seq), ncol=1, dimnames=list(rich.seq))
##generate a table where the row names are those numbers
print(details.table) ##that's what it looks like
temp.results <- matrix(nrow=10, ncol=2, dimnames=list(1:10))
##generate some sample data to summarize and fill into details.table
temp.results[,1] <- rep(5:6, 5)
temp.results[,2] <- rnorm(10)
print(temp.results) ##that's what it looks like
details.table[,1][row.names(details.table) %in% count(temp.results[,1])$x] <-
count(temp.results[,1])$freq
##summarize, subset to the appropriate rows in details.table, and fill in the summary
print(details.table)
for (i in 1:max.iterations)
{
rich.seq <- rich.seq[details.table < desired.iterations | is.na(details.table)]
## the idea would be to keep cutting this sequence of numbers down with
## successive iterations until the desired number of iterations per row in
## details.table was reached. in other words, in the real code i'd do
## something to details.table in the next line
print(rich.seq)
}
}
##call the function
test(desired.iterations=4, max.iterations=2)
On the first run through the for loop the rich.seq looks like I'd expect it to, where 5 & 6 are no longer in the sequence because both ended up with more than 4 iterations. However, on the second run, it spits out something unexpected.
UPDATE
Thanks for your help and also my apologies. After re-reading my original post it is not only less than clear, but I hadn't realized count was part of the plyr package, which I call in my full function but wasn't calling here. I'll try and explain better.
What I have working at the moment is a function that takes a matrix, randomizes it (in any of a number of different ways), then calculates some statistics on it. These stats are temporarily stored in a table--temp.results--where temp.results[,1] is the sum of the non zero elements in each column, and temp.results[,2] is a different summary statistic for that column. I save these results to a csv file (and append them to the same file at subsequent iterations), because looping through it and rbinding hogs a lot of memory.
The problem is that certain column sums (temp.results[,1]) are sampled very infrequently. In order to sample those sufficiently requires many many iterations, and the resulting .csv files would stretch into the hundreds of gigabytes.
What I want to do is create and then update a table (details.table) at each iteration that keeps track of how many times each column sum actually got sampled. When a given element in the table reaches the desired.iterations, I want it to be excluded from the vector rich.seq, so that only columns that haven't received the desired.iterations are actually saved to the csv file. The max.iterations argument will be used in a break() statement in case things are taking too long.
So, what I was expecting in the example case is the exact same line for rich.seq for both iterations, since I didn't actually do anything to change it. I believe that flodel is definitely right that my problem lies in comparing a matrix (details.table) of length longer than rich.seq, leading to unexpected results. However, I don't want the dimensions of details.table to change. Perhaps I can solve the problem implementing %in% somehow when I redefine rich.seq in the for loop?

Answer 1

I agree you should improve your question. However, I think I can spot what is going wrong.
You compute details.table before the for loop. It is a matrix with same length as rich.seq when it was first initialized (length(4:34), i.e. 31).
Inside the for loop, details.table < desired.iterations | is.na(details.table) is then a logical vector of length 31. On the first loop iteration,
rich.seq <- rich.seq[details.table < desired.iterations | is.na(details.table)]
will result in reducing the length of rich.seq. But on the second loop iteration, unless details.table is redefined (not the case), you are trying to subset rich.seq by a logical vector of longer length than rich.seq. This will certainly lead to unexpected results.
You probably meant to redefine details.table as part of your for loop.
(Also I am surprised to see you never used temp.results[,2].)

Answer 2

Thanks to flodel for setting me off on the right track. It had nothing to do with is.na but rather the lengths of vectors I was comparing.
That said, I set the initial values of the details.table to zero to avoid the added complexity of the is.na statement.
This code works, and can be modified to do what I described above.
library(plyr)
test <- function(desired.iterations, max.iterations)
{
rich.seq <- 4:34 ##make a sequence of numbers
details.table <- matrix(nrow=length(rich.seq), ncol=1, dimnames=list(rich.seq)) ##generate a table where the row names are those numbers
details.table[,1] <- 0
print(details.table) ##that's what it looks like
temp.results <- matrix(nrow=10, ncol=2, dimnames=list(1:10)) ##generate some sample data to summarize and fill into details.table
temp.results[,1] <- rep(5:6, 5)
temp.results[,2] <- rnorm(10)
print(temp.results) ##that's what it looks like
details.table[,1][row.names(details.table) %in% count(temp.results[,1])$x] <- count(temp.results[,1])$freq ##summarize, subset to the appropriate rows in details.table, and fill in the summary
print(details.table)
for (i in 1:max.iterations)
{
rich.seq <- row.names(details.table)[details.table[,1] < desired.iterations]
print(rich.seq)
}
}
Rather than trying to cut down the rich.seq I just redefine it every iteration based on whatever happens with details.table during the previous iteration.