Re: [Rd] possible improvement to ?with examples

[Martin Maechler]

> Ben Bolker 
> on Thu, 16 Feb 2017 15:37:13 -0500 writes:

> A querent on StackOverflow asked about the with() function
> 
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42283479/why-when-to-use-with-function#42283479

> and asked about the example in ?with

> library(MASS)
> with(anorexia, {
>  anorex.1 <- glm(Postwt ~ Prewt + Treat + offset(Prewt),
> family = gaussian)
>  summary(anorex.1)
> })

> which saves little or no typing relative to

> anorex.1 <- glm(Postwt ~ Prewt + Treat + offset(Prewt),
> family = gaussian, data=anorexia)

> (I would argue that the latter is better practice anyway).

> Could we have something more sensible like

> with(mtcars,mpg[cyl==8 & disp>350])

> ?  (It could be contrasted directly with

> mtcars$mpg[mtcars$cyl==8 & mtcars$disp>350]

> )

I now have done something like the above, and have added a
\note{ .. }  to warn about "over - use" of with().

Also added a link to Thomas Lumley's paper
  Thomas Lumley (2003)  \emph{Standard nonstandard evaluation rules}.
  \url{http://developer.r-project.org/nonstandard-eval.pdf}

> I'm happy to submit a bug report/patch if that seems appropriate.

Thank you, Ben!
Martin

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[Rd] possible improvement to ?with examples

[Ben Bolker]

A querent on StackOverflow asked about the with() function

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42283479/why-when-to-use-with-function#42283479

and asked about the example in ?with

library(MASS)
 with(anorexia, {
 anorex.1 <- glm(Postwt ~ Prewt + Treat + offset(Prewt),
 family = gaussian)
 summary(anorex.1)
 })

which saves little or no typing relative to

   anorex.1 <- glm(Postwt ~ Prewt + Treat + offset(Prewt),
 family = gaussian, data=anorexia)

(I would argue that the latter is better practice anyway).

  Could we have something more sensible like

   with(mtcars,mpg[cyl==8 & disp>350])

?  (It could be contrasted directly with

mtcars$mpg[mtcars$cyl==8 & mtcars$disp>350]

)

I'm happy to submit a bug report/patch if that seems appropriate.

  cheers
Ben Bolker

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