Thank you, I do see that now. I still don't completely agree with the behaviour, I hoped there would be a way to not simplify, but thank you for pointing me to the fact that it is documented.
--- http://deanattali.com On 5 August 2015 at 05:08, S Ellison <s.elli...@lgcgroup.com> wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: R-devel [mailto:r-devel-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Dean > Attali > > If i have a function that returns a named list with 2 (or more) elements, > > then using 'vapply' retains the names of the elements: > > .... > > But if the function only returns one element, then the name "foo" is lost > > vapply _always simplifies_ according to the documentation. > > In the first case (function return value contains more than one element, > and each ), vapply simplifies to a matrix of two lists (!). The names > "foo" and "hello" have been added to the dimnames so you can tell which is > which. > > in the second case the function return value is a single list and not a > matrix of lists (a simple list is simpler than a matrix of lists). The name > of the list ('foo') has nowhere to go; instead, you would be assigning the > list to a named variable and you don't need the name 'foo'. > > Whether that is inconsistent is something of a matter of perspective. > Simplification applied as far as possible will always depend on what > simplification is possible for the particular return values, so different > return values provide different behaviour. > > S Ellison > > > ******************************************************************* > This email and any attachments are confidential. Any u...{{dropped:12}} ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
