You need to break down your expression into parts and see what the data is:
> Empl[c(2,4)] $family $family$spouse [1] "Fred" $family$children [1] 3 $family$child.ages [1] 4 7 9 $family $family$spouse [1] "Mary" $family$children [1] 2 $family$child.ages [1] 14 17 > Empl[c(2,4)]$family #>> notice only picks the first object $spouse [1] "Fred" $children [1] 3 $child.ages [1] 4 7 9 To get multiple objects, then you need to use some of the 'apply' functions; in this case 'sapply': > sapply(Empl[c(2,4)], '[[', 'spouse') family family "Fred" "Mary" Jim Holtman Data Munger Guru What is the problem that you are trying to solve? Tell me what you want to do, not how you want to do it. On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 2:31 PM, FERNANDO MANSITO CABALLERO < fernando.mans...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear Madam/Sir, > > I am trying to understand R and I have come to a stumbling block. i > have written: > > >Empl <- list(employee="Anna",family=list(spouse="Fred",children=3, > +child.ages=c(4,7,9)),employee="John",family=list(spouse="Mary",children=2, > +child.ages=c(14,17))) > >Empl[c(2,4)]$family$spouse > [1] "Fred" > >#instead of [1] "Fred" "Mary" > > Where am I wrong? > > Thank you very much for your patience > Yours truly, > Fernando Mansito > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > 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. > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.
