redundant names

[Paul Gilbert]

I don't often suggest an incompatibility with S, but I think this behavior in S
and R is very dangerous:

> c(list(a="a"), b=2, a=1)$a
[1] "a"
> c(list(a="a"), b=2, a=1)
$a
[1] "a"
$b
[1] 2
$a
[1] 1

I think this is a case where we may want incompatibility with S in order to
enforce good programming and catch unintentional errors. I cannot think of a
case
where I would want a list with two elements having the same name. I would
suggest  eliminating all but the first of any redundant names (and issuing a
warning?).

Paul Gilbert



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