I think your problem is more with indexing than with function writing. The main confusion is in how to use '$', this is a shortcut to make certain things easier, but you are trying to use the shortcut like going from France to Germany by way of New York City because you know a great shortcut through NYC.
>From the help page for $ (> ?'$'): "Both '[[' and '$' select a single element of the list. The main difference is that '$' does not allow computed indices, whereas '[[' does." You are trying to use a computed index, look at the line above (especially the 'not') and see if there is something else there suggests what you should be using. This seems to be a common misunderstanding lately, could you tell us a bit about which documentation and examples you read that lead you to think about using '$' with computed indices and did not help you understand the need for '[[' instead so that maybe the documentation can be improved to help future readers? -- Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. Statistical Data Center Intermountain Healthcare [EMAIL PROTECTED] 801.408.8111 > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > project.org] On Behalf Of Bunny, lautloscrew.com > Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 3:18 AM > To: r-help@r-project.org > Subject: [R] basic information defining functions > > Hi all, > > i am looking from some insights to define own R functions. so far i > found most basics in documentations that are around on the web. except > for one thing: > > I´d like to define some function, say: > > #assume my data matrix contains vectors like data$myColumn1,data > $myColumn2 etc. > > getMyColumn <- function (columnid){ > > x<-data$MyColumn?columnid?[data$indexone=1 & data$index2=5] > > return(x) > > } > > Do I need to use assign or eval first ? I tried to use paste to > combine something like: paste("data$MyColumn",columnid,sep="") which > did not work. > > I am happy to get any help with the problem, but also thankful for > some useful link or guide on how to define own functions properly, > especially the dynamic naming and return part > > thx in advance > > bunny > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > 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. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list 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.