[R] Combined variable names

[Douglas Bates]

Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
> Tobias Muhlhofer <t.muhlhofer at lse.ac.uk> wrote:
> 	I am trying to define a large number of variables through a loop
> 	construct.
> 	
> He wants to do
> 	for (i in 1:100) {
> 	    assign(paste("v", i, sep=""), ....something or other...)
> 	}
> 
> This is, of course, a FAQ.  It's such a FAQ that I must have seen it
> once a day for the last several days.
> 
> What I want to know is *WHY* people are doing this?
> What, precisely, does it buy you to have variables called v1...v100
> rather than variables called v[[1]]...v[[100]]?
> Apart from persistent inconvenience, that is?

I believe it is an SPSSism.  It has been many, many years since I last 
used SPSS but I vaguely recall a facility for specifying ranges of 
columns in the form x1-x99.

Duncan Temple Lang's sig file used to have a quote something like 
"Language shapes the way we think" and that applies here.