[R] data manipulation function descriptions

[ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk]

On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, kjetil brinchmann halvorsen wrote:

> On 13 Feb 2003 at 17:09, Jason Bond wrote:

> > case                          switch
>                                     [R-core : switch should be better 
>                                                announced. It is for   
>                                                 instance not     
>                                                  mentioned in "An 
>                                                   introduction to R"]

Well, that is an *introduction*, not a programmer's guide.  You will find
switch() is rarely used in R: it is a bit peculiar in its semantics, and 
something definitely not to be considered introductory.

On the original question, I think it would be a mistake to translate what
you know.  R is a vector language, not a pairlist language, and I see
quite a bit of evidence of convoluted solutions in its internals dating
from when R was the second.  Chapter 2 of Venables & Ripley (2002) (as in
the R FAQ) is devoted to using S/R for data manipulation.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595