[R] no _?

[Peter Dalgaard BSA]

Rolf Turner <rolf at maths.uwa.edu.au> writes:

> Jeff D. Hamann writes:
> 
> > I see the uderscore "_" is not allowed in R. This make R a real drag when
> > trying to use with SQL packages and c code. Why is the underscore not
> > allowed and will it be allowed in a future release?
> 
> But the underscore ***is*** allowed in R!!!
> 
> E.g.
> 
> > x _ 42
> > x
> [1] 42
> 
>     :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   :-)   

The underscore *may* be allowed in variable names in some future
release, but first we need to get rid of the use as assignment
operator... 

The main obstacle is S compatibility, both ways. One thing is that
scripts with underscores as assignment might break on R (they're
unreadable to human eyes anyway...), but imagine running an R script
under S-PLUS with

do_list <- function(whatever)whichever()

and creating two objects "do" and "list", one of which is overriding a
fairly important system function...

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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