Ok, I see the difference between 1 and 1:2, I'll just leave it as one of those "only in R" things.
But it seems then, that as.numeric() should guarantee a FALSE outcome, yet it does not. To build on what Rolf pointed out, I would really love for someone to explain this one: > str(1) num 1 > str(1:2) int [1:2] 1 2 > str(as.numeric(1:2)) num [1:2] 1 2 > str(as(1:2,"numeric")) int [1:2] 1 2 Which doubly makes no sense. 1) Either the class is "numeric" or it isn't; I did not call as.integer() here. 2) method of recasting should not affect final class. Thanks, Ariel -----Original Message----- From: Rolf Turner [mailto:r.tur...@auckland.ac.nz] Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2016 5:27 AM To: Jeff Newmiller Cc: Paulson, Ariel; 'r-help@r-project.org' Subject: Re: [FORGED] Re: [R] identical() versus sapply() On 09/04/16 16:24, Jeff Newmiller wrote: > I highly recommend making friends with the str function. Try > > str( 1 ) > str( 1:2 ) Interesting. But to me counter-intuitive. Since R makes no distinction between scalars and vectors of length 1 (or more accurately I think, since in R there is *no such thing as a scalar*, only a vector of length 1) I don't see why "1" should be treated in a manner that is categorically different from the way in which "1:2" is treated. Can you, or someone else with deep insight into R and its rationale, explain the basis for this difference in treatment? > for the clue you need, and then > > sapply( 1:2, identical, 1L ) cheers, Rolf -- Technical Editor ANZJS Department of Statistics University of Auckland Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276 ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
