[R] Problem assigning "NA" as a level name in a list

[Cliff Behrens]

Sorry...I didn't realize that there were such distinct lines drawn 
around core vs contributed packages.  I merely thought that r-help put 
those with questions in touch with others who might have used or 
authored a package and experienced the same problem.  I didn't intend to 
make more work for you or anyone else on this list.  In fact, I was 
merely trying to be thorough and exact, including a note with the 
version of R and the OS I am running.  I have no idea what packages 
others have installed in their R environments.  For future reference, am 
I to assume that no contributed packages should be implicated in 
resolving a problem?

Peter Dalgaard wrote:
> Cliff Behrens wrote:
>> Peter,
>>
>> I've inserted response inline below:
>>
>> Cliff
>>
>> Peter Dalgaard wrote:
>>> Cliff Behrens wrote:
>>>> Peter,
>>>>
>>>> OK...here is reproducible, self-contained code:
>>>>
>>>> library(gregmisc)
>>>
>>> Relying on a 3rd party package is not kosher either... Whatever did
>>> list("NA"=2)  or l <- list(2); names(l) <- "NA" do to you?
>>>
>> I'm not sure what you mean by "3rd party?"  I downloaded this package 
>> from the CRAN site where I get all others.  I don't understand your 
>> question.
>
> 3rd party means that you didn't write it and neither did I/we. You are 
> requesting people to help you, yet expecting that they go out of their 
> way to install a package first. (As it happens, I really don't have 
> gregmisc on this machine.) You could easily have created an example of 
> a list with "NA" as a name, but that would of course have been work 
> for you rather than for people on the list.
>
>
>
>>>> columnNames <- c("A","B","C","D","N","a","b","c")
>>>> namePerms<- 
>>>> permutations(length(columnNames),2,columnNames,repeats=TRUE)
>>>> nameList <- paste(namePerms[,1],namePerms[,2],sep="")
>>>> dataList <- lapply(1:length(nameList), function(level) {})
>>>> names(dataList)<-  nameList  ## The "NA" is interpreted that the 
>>>> name is missing for one list in dataList
>>>>
>>>> If you inspect the contents of dataList, you will find the 
>>>> following showing that the name "NA" is treated differently:
>>>
>>> Anyways....  As I thought:
>>>
>>> Remember that NA is a reserved word. You get the same kind of 
>>> reaction if you name an element "for" or "in". It denotes that you 
>>> need to quote the name for indexing with $:
>>>
>> I thought that since all of the names in namesList were type char, 
>> there was no need to enclose these in quotation marks.
>
> That's not the point. It works fine, it is just that the output is 
> showing you how to access the element afterwards.
>
>>> > names(l) <- "NA"
>>> > l$NA
>>> Error: unexpected numeric constant in "l$NA"
>>> > l$`NA`
>>> [1] 2
>>> > l$"NA"
>>> [1] 2
>>> > l[["NA"]]
>>> [1] 2
>>> > names(l)
>>> [1] "NA"
>>>
>>>> ......
>>
>>
>
>