Hi there,
Thanks, but I'm using R 2.12.2(2011-02-25) and ?textConnection says
everything you quoted except the last sentence ("'object' should be the name
of a character vector: however, short expressions will be accepted provided
they deparse to less than 60 bytes."). Can it be that the help file is
different on different platforms (i'm a simple windows user) or are you
referring to a still more recent version of R?
But I still have mixed feelings about the new sentence (although I now
understand better how it works) ... for example, the following works fine:
spam <- function(x) sub("a", "A", x)
foo <- "qwerty uiop asdf ghjkl zxcvb nm"
con <-
textConnection(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(foo))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
# very loong, does it deparse to less than 60 bytes?
But not this:
> con <-
textConnection(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(spam(foo)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
# Error: contextstack overflow at line 1
And then ....
"%spam%" <- function(x,y) sub("y", toupper(y), x)
"%s%" <- function(x,y) sub(y, toupper(y), x)
textConnection(foo %spam% "a" %spam% "b" %spam% "c" %spam% "d" %spam% "e")
# ok
textConnection(foo %spam% "a" %spam% "b" %spam% "c" %spam% "d" %spam% "e"
%spam% "f")
# invalid 'description' argument
textConnection(foo %s% "a" %s% "b" %s% "c" %s% "d" %s% "e" %s% "f" %s% "g")
# ok
textConnection(foo %s% "a" %s% "b" %s% "c" %s% "d" %s% "e" %s% "f" %s% "g"
%s% "h")
# invalid 'description' argument
Wouldn't it be more straightforward to say that an "expression" works only
if "deparse" (with default arguments) returns a length 1 vector. Or maybe
it would be worth considering substituting ...
.Internal(textConnection(deparse(substitute(object)), object,
open, env, type))
... for something like one of the following:
# 1
descr <- deparse(substitute(object))
if(length(descr)>1) descr <- paste(descr, collapse="")
.Internal(descr, object, open, env, type)
#2
descr <- deparse(substitute(object))
if(length(descr)>1) descr <- paste("some nice description", date(), sep=" -
")
.Internal(descr, object, open, env, type)
In addition, the error message "invalid description argument" can be
confusing as there is no argument called "description" to textConnection and
the user may not know about the internal function (without reading the
code). Another point is that the object can be a character vector itself (a
"string literal") and in that case it can be quite long
scan(textConnection(paste(rep("a",100000), collapse=",")), what="", sep=",")
Regards,
Kenn
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 1:36 PM, Simon Urbanek
<simon.urba...@r-project.org>wrote:
> Kenn,
>
> you might have had a point a while ago, but you may want to check most
> recent R and re-evaluate:
>
> ?textConnection
> [...]
> object: character. A description of the connection. For an input
> this is an R character vector object, and for an output
> connection the name for the R character vector to receive the
> output, or 'NULL' (for none).
> [...]
>
> Details:
>
> An input text connection is opened and the character vector is
> copied at time the connection object is created, and 'close'
> destroys the copy. 'object' should be the name of a character
> vector: however, short expressions will be accepted provided they
> deparse to less than 60 bytes.
>
> Cheers,
> Simon
>
>
>
> On Mar 14, 2011, at 7:32 AM, Kenn Konstabel wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > `textConnection` prepares arguments for an internal function, and one of
> > these arguments is "description" that must be a character vector of
> length 1
> > (or so it seems).
> >
> > Now the one and only argument you usually give to `textConnection` is
> > called "object"; from the code you can see how this becomes a
> "description":
> >
> > .Internal(textConnection(deparse(substitute(object)), object,
> > open, env, type))
> >
> > deparse(substitute(object)) -- which is intended to get the name of the
> > object you supplied. Try
> >
> >> obj <- "a 1\nb 2\nc 3"
> >> deparse(substitute(obj))
> > [1] "obj"
> >> deparse(substitute("a 1\nb 2\nc 3"))
> > [1] "\"a 1\\nb 2\\nc 3\""
> >
> > This is called "non-standard evaluation" - in almost every other case it
> > makes no difference whether you do some_fun(obj) or some_fun("a 1\nb 2\nc
> > 3") but in this case it does.
> >
> > Now for some reason (I'm not exactly sure why this happens) the result
> > deparse+substitute of your gsub thing is a character vector of length 2.
> >
> > ugly.string <- deparse
> >
> (substitute(gsub("&","\n",(strsplit('{"abc",{"def","X,1&Y,2&Z,3"}}','\\"')[[1]][6]))))
> >
> > length( ugly.string)
> >
> > Anyway, if the textConnection object has a "description" component then
> it
> > is probably useful for something but something like "gsub(\"&\", \"\\n\",
> > (strsplit(\"{\\\"abc\\\",{\\\"def\\\",\\\"X,1&Y,2&Z,3\\\"}}\" doesn't
> seem
> > too useful. If you really hate the intermediate step (assignment) then a
> > solution might be to use the internal textConnection function directly,
> or
> > modify the code of `textConnection` e.g. like this:
> >
> > tc <- function (object, open = "r", local = FALSE, encoding = c("",
> > "bytes", "UTF-8")) {
> > env <- if (local) parent.frame() else .GlobalEnv
> > type <- match(match.arg(encoding), c("", "bytes", "UTF-8"))
> > description <- deparse(substitute(object))
> > is.ugly <- function(x) length(x)>1
> > if(is.ugly(description)) description <- "a nice description"
> > .Internal(textConnection(description, object, open, env, type))
> > }
> >
> > # this will work with your examples
> >
> > Bu the answer to your bug report was not particularly helpful (a simple
> > "RTFC" would have helped more) and from an ordinary mortal's
> perspective
> > it is also wrong.
> >
> >> your usage is incorrect.
> >> object: character. A description of the connection. For an input
> >> this is an R character vector object ...
> >> and you used an expression. Some expressions work, but only
> >> simple ones (and none are guaranteed to).
> >
> > But what you actually used is "character" and not an expression:
> >
> >
> is.character(gsub("&","\n",(strsplit('{"abc",{"def","X,1&Y,2&Z,3"}}','\\"')[[1]][6])))
> > # TRUE
> >
> is.expression(gsub("&","\n",(strsplit('{"abc",{"def","X,1&Y,2&Z,3"}}','\\"')[[1]][6])))
> > # FALSE :-P
> >
> > (Provided that standard evaluation is used which one would ordinarily
> > expect.) So in my opinion, the documentation is not complete here: it
> should
> > say explicitly that the object would better be a simple name and that
> > otherwise the result is not guaranteed.
> >
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kenn
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 12:20 PM, WANGSONG <mr.wangs...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I need read a table in a string with special format. I used read.csv and
> >> textConnection function.
> >> But i am confuse about textConnection by follow code.
> >>
> >> case A: It is OK£¡
> >> str0 <- '{"abc",{"def","X,1&Y,2&Z,3"}}'
> >> str1 <- strsplit(str0,'"')[[1]][6]
> >> str2 <- gsub("&","\n", str1)
> >> con <- textConnection( str2 )
> >> read.csv(con,header=F)
> >> close(con)
> >>
> >> case B: It is NOK!
> >> con <- textConnection(
> >> gsub("&","\n",(strsplit('{"abc",{"def","X,1&Y,2&Z,3"}}','"')[[1]][6])) )
> >> # Error in here
> >> read.csv(con,header=F)
> >> close(con)
> >>
> >> case C: It is OK!
> >> str0 <- '{"abc",{"def","X,1&Y,2&Z,3"}}'
> >> con <- textConnection( gsub("&","\n", (strsplit(str0,'"')[[1]][6])) )
> >> read.csv(con,header=F)
> >> close(con)
> >>
> >> case D: It is OK!
> >> str2 <- gsub("&","\n",
> >> strsplit('{"abc",{"def","X,1&Y,2&Z,3"}}','"')[[1]][6])
> >> con <- textConnection( str2 )
> >> read.csv(con,header=F)
> >> close(con)
> >>
> >> Except case B, textConnection report "invalid 'description' argument",
> in
> >> other case, textConnection is OK.
> >>
> >> I don't known, what is different£¿ I report it as [Bug 14527], But the
> >> Answer is :
> >>> your usage is incorrect.
> >>> object: character. A description of the connection. For an input
> >> this is an R character vector object ...
> >>> and you used an expression. Some expressions work, but only simple
> ones
> >> (and none are guaranteed to).
> >>
> >> I read the help carefully, but i don't known which usage is incorrect.
> >>
> >> Would you help me?
> >>
> >>
> >> WangSong
> >>
> >>
> >> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >>
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >>
> >>
> >
> > [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
>
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