I believe this has to do terms() making "term.labels" (hence the dimnames of "factors") with deparse(), so that the backquotes are included for non-syntactic names. The backquotes are not in the column names of the input data.frame (nor model frame) so you get a mismatch when subscripting the data.frame or model.frame with elements of terms()$term.labels.
I think you can avoid the problem by adding right after ll <- attr(Terms, "term.labels") the line ll <- gsub("^`|`$", "", ll) E.g., > d <- data.frame(check.names=FALSE, y=1/(1:5), `b$a$d`=sin(1:5)+2, `x y z`=cos(1:5)+2) > Terms <- terms( y ~ log(`b$a$d`) + `x y z` ) > m <- model.frame(Terms, data=d) > colnames(m) [1] "y" "log(`b$a$d`)" "x y z" > attr(Terms, "term.labels") [1] "log(`b$a$d`)" "`x y z`" > ll <- attr(Terms, "term.labels") > gsub("^`|`$", "", ll) [1] "log(`b$a$d`)" "x y z" It is a bit of a mess. Bill Dunlap TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 12:55 PM, Therneau, Terry M., Ph.D. via R-devel < r-devel@r-project.org> wrote: > A user reported a problem with the survdiff function and the use of > variables that contain a space. Here is a simple example. The same issue > occurs in survfit for the same reason. > > lung2 <- lung > names(lung2)[1] <- "in st" # old name is inst > survdiff(Surv(time, status) ~ `in st`, data=lung2) > Error in `[.data.frame`(m, ll) : undefined columns selected > > In the body of the code the program want to send all of the right-hand > side variables forward to the strata() function. The code looks more or > less like this, where m is the model frame > > Terms <- terms(m) > index <- attr(Terms, "term.labels") > if (length(index) ==0) X <- rep(1L, n) # no coariates > else X <- strata(m[index]) > > For the variable with a space in the name the term.label is "`in st`", and > the subscript fails. > > Is this intended behaviour or a bug? The issue is that the name of this > column in the model frame does not have the backtics, while the terms > structure does have them. > > Terry T. > > ______________________________________________ > 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