On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 09:32:14 +0100, Martin Maechler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote :
> RichOK> If you want to pass seq(length=n) to a .C or > RichOK> .Fortran call, it's not helpful that you can't tell > RichOK> what the type is until you know n! It would be nice > RichOK> if seq(length=n) always returned the same type. I > RichOK> use seq(length=n) often instead of 1:n because I'd > RichOK> like my code to work when n == 0; it would make life > RichOK> simpler if seq(length=n) and 1:n were the same type. > >now if that really makes your *life* simpler, what does that >tell us about your life ;-) :-) > >But yes, you are right. All should return integer I think. Yes, it should be consistent, and integer makes sense here. However, as a matter of defensive programming, one should almost always explicitly set the type (using as.integer for example) in a .C or .Fortran call: those languages care quite a bit about the storage mode, and give bizarre and hard to debug errors when it is wrong. If you did this, you wouldn't care that seq(length=n) returns mode double. It might waste a few cpu cycles, but programmer debugging cycles are much more expensive. Duncan Murdoch ______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
