[Rd] arr.ind argument to which.min and which.max

[Patrick Burns]

On 06/07/2010 10:53, Martin Maechler wrote:

[ ... ]

>
> Wouldn't it make more sense to call
>
>     arrayInd(which.min(mat), dim(mat))
>
> instead of
> 	    which.min(mat, arr.ind = TRUE)
>
> in the spirit of modularity, maintainability, ... ?
> Honestly, in my first reply I had forgotten about my own
> arrayInd() modularization....

Yes.  Then I guess the suggested change is to
put 'arrayInd' in the See Also and Examples for
'which.min' for dunderheads like me that don't
think of it themselves.

>
>      >>>  If the order of the if condition were reversed, then
>      >>>  possibly the slight reduction in speed of 'which.min'
>      >>>  and 'which.max' would be more than made up for in the
>      >>>  slight increase in speed of 'which'.
>
> thanks for the hint, but
>
>        "increase in speed of 'which'"  -- really, can you measure that?

I doubt it.

>
> (I'll reverse the order anyway)
>
> If we are interested in speed increase, we should add an option
> to *not* work with dimnames at all (*) and if we have programmer
> time left, we could take it .Internal() and get a real
> boost... not now though.
>
> (*) I'm doing that for now, *and* I would like to change the
>      default behavior or arrayInd(), but of course *not* the
>      default behavior of which(),
>      to *not* attach dimnames to the result, by default.
>
>    I.e., I'm proposing to add   'useNames = FALSE' as argument to
>    arrayInd() but have  which() call arrayInd(..., useNames=TRUE).
>
>    This is a back-compatibility change in arrayInd() -- which has
>    existed only since 2.11.0 anyway, so would seem ok, to me.
>
>    Opinions ?

I find it hard to believe that would cause
too much trauma.

Pat

>
> --
> Martin
>

-- 
Patrick Burns
pburns at pburns.seanet.com
http://www.burns-stat.com
(home of 'Some hints for the R beginner'
and 'The R Inferno')