I disagree. I see "formals() <- " as a way to compute on **functions**, which are first class *objects* in R, as in any functional programming language. This is not computing on the language as I understand the term -- substitute() and friends are, i.e. anything where eval() is needed to get a result.
Cheers, Bert On Sun, Oct 26, 2025 at 7:36 AM Richard O'Keefe <[email protected]> wrote: > Can I just mention the quick-and-dirty way that will get the job done? > Not as elegant as use the special features of the language *meant* for > this kind of job, > but suitable for a bear of very little brain. > > 1. Write a function that constructs the code you want as text, written > to a file. > 2. source() the file.' > > On Sat, 25 Oct 2025 at 15:23, Rolf Turner <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > I want to build a function (say "buildFn") to *return* a function of the > > form > > > > foo(x,y,a1, ... an, b1, ..., bn) > > > > where the arguments ai and bi are given in the form of a list created > > in R. E.g. I'd like to be able to say > > > > argnms <- c(paste0("a",1:3),paste0("b",1:3")) > > foo <- buildFn(argnms) > > > > with the resulting "foo" having arguments x, y, a1, a2, a3, b1, b2, b3. > > > > I thought I might be able to do this using "formals<-" but I cannot get > > this to work. i could provide more detail of what I've tried, but it's > > probably not worth it. > > > > Can anyone steer me in the right direction? Thanks. > > > > cheers, > > > > Rolf Turner > > > > -- > > Honorary Research Fellow > > Department of Statistics > > University of Auckland > > Stats. Dep't. (secretaries) phone: > > +64-9-373-7599 ext. 89622 > > Home phone: +64-9-480-4619 > > > > ______________________________________________ > > [email protected] mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > PLEASE do read the posting guide > https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > ______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide > https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide https://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
