On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:49:03 -0700, Jeff Laake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Again thanks for the input. I've been a recipient of this list for > quite a few years although I don't post often. It is an invaluable > resource and I appreciate the effort of all the contributors. I > support a lot of software so I know how much work it can be. > I've seen the "reproducible code" at the bottom of the messages but > until I got an off-list explanation I had no idea that it meant an > example in which the "code AND data can be copied and pasted directly > into R". I re-read the posting guide and it does suggest providing an > example. Adding a definition for "reproducible code" might help. The posting guide already has that (albeit implicitly): ---<---------------cut here---------------start-------------->--- Examples: Sometimes it helps to provide a small example that someone can actually run. For example: If I have a matrix x as follows: > x <- matrix(1:8, nrow=4, ncol=2, dimnames=list(c("A","B","C","D"), c("x","y")) > x x y A 1 5 B 2 6 C 3 7 D 4 8 > how can I turn it into a dataframe with 8 rows, and three columns named `row', `col', and `value', which have the dimension names as the values of `row' and `col', like this: > x.df row col value 1 A x 1 ... (To which the answer might be: > x.df <- reshape(data.frame(row=rownames(x), x), direction="long", varying=list(colnames(x)), times=colnames(x), v.names="value", timevar="col", idvar="row") ) When providing examples, it is best to give an R command that constructs the data, as in the matrix() expression above. For more complicated data structures, dump("x", file=stdout()) will print an expression that will recreate the object x. ---<---------------cut here---------------end---------------->--- Perhaps this should start with: Examples: It helps to provide reproducible code, i.e. a small example that someone can actually run. For example: to link the R-help banner with the posting guide more explicitly. -- Seb ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list 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.