[R] How to return more than one variable from function

[Vincent Goulet]

Le Vendredi 20 Avril 2007 07:46, Julien Barnier a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> > I have written a function which computes variance, sd,
> > r^2, R^2adj etc. But i am not able to return all of
> > them in return statement.
>
> You can return a vector, or a list.
>
> For example :
>
> func <- function() {
>   ...
>   result <- list(variance=3, sd=sqrt(3))
>   return(result)  # you can omit this
> }

Nitpicking and for the record: if you omit the "return(result)" line, the 
function will return nothing since it ends with an assignment. Furthermore, 
explicit use of return() is never needed at the end of a function. The above 
snippet is correct, but this is enough:

func <- function() {
  ...
  result <-list(variance=3, sd=sqrt(3))
  result
}

But then, why assign to a variable just to return its value? Better still:

func <- function() {
  ...
  list(variance=3, sd=sqrt(3))
}


>
> a <- func()
> a$variance
> a$sd
>
> HTH,
>
> Julien

-- 
  Vincent Goulet, Professeur agrégé
  École d'actuariat
  Université Laval, Québec 
  Vincent.Goulet at act.ulaval.ca   http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca