[Rd] (PR#12318) Bug in format.default(): na.encode does not have any effect for

Gorjanc Gregor Gregor.Gorjanc at bfro.uni-lj.si
Sat Aug 9 17:50:00 CEST 2008


Hi to all!

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> Have you read the help page?  It says
>
>    na.encode: logical: should 'NA' strings be encoded?
>
> No mention of encoding NA numerical values that I can see, and it was
> never intended to apply to other than *strings*.

I did read the help page, however it seems that I have confused the meaning of
'NA' string and 'NA' value. It might be obvious that the first form is meant
for strings (charcaters) only and the other for numeric like vectors, but not to me.

IMHO it would be better that na.encode argument would also have an
effect for numeric like vectors. Nearly any function in R returns NA values and I
expected the same for format, at least when na.encode=FALSE.

Regards, Gregor



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