>>>>> "Duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>> on Sat, 04 Dec 2004 09:17:26 -0500 writes:
Duncan> On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 13:51:55 +0100, Martin Maechler
Duncan> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>>> "Duncan" == Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on
>>>>>>> Sat, 4 Dec 2004 01:55:26 +0100 (CET) writes:
>>
Duncan> There's an as.matrix() call in write.table that
Duncan> means the formatting of numeric columns changes
Duncan> depending on whether there are any non-numeric
Duncan> columns in the table or not.
>> yes, I think I had seen this (a while ago in the source
>> code) and then wondered if one shouldn't have used
>> data.matrix() instead of as.matrix() - something I
>> actually do advocate more generally, as "good programming
>> style". It also does solve the problem in the example
>> here -- HOWEVER, the lines *before* as.matrix() have
>>
>> ## as.matrix might turn integer or numeric columns into a
>> complex matrix cmplx <- sapply(x, is.complex)
>> if(any(cmplx) && !all(cmplx)) x[cmplx] <-
>> lapply(x[cmplx], as.character) x <- as.matrix(x)
>>
>> which makes you see that write.table(.) should also work
>> when the data frame has complex variables {or some other
>> kinds of non-numeric as you've said above} -- something
>> which data.matrix() can't handle.... As soon as you have
>> a complex or a character variable (together with others)
>> in your data.frame, as.matrix() will have to return
>> "character" and apply format() to the numeric variables,
>> as well...
>>
>> So, to make this consistent in your sense,
>> i.e. formatting of a column shouldn't depend on the
>> presence of other columns, we can't use as.matrix() nor
>> data.matrix() but have to basically replicate an altered
>> version of as.matrix inside write.table.
>>
>> I propose to do this, but expose the altered version as
>> something like as.charMatrix(.)
>>
>> and replace the 4 lines {of code in write.table()} above
>> by the single line as.charMatrix(x)
Duncan> That sounds good. Which version of the formatting
Duncan> would you choose, leading spaces or not? My
Duncan> preference would be to leave off the leading spaces,
mine too, very strong preference, actually:
The behavior should be such that each column is formatted
___ as if it was the only column of that data frame ___
Duncan> in the belief that write.table is usually used for
Duncan> data storage rather than data display, but it is
Duncan> sometimes used for data display (e.g. in
Duncan> utils::upgrade.packageStatus, which would not be
Duncan> affected by your choice).
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