[R] attempted merge() returns: cannot coerce type 'closure' to vector of type 'any'

[Karl Brand]

Cheers Bill,

Thank you for the clarificaiton. Prabably showing the str() of these 
objects would have made it easier for you see exatly where i was going 
wrong. Which as David pointed out, was really a lack of ?merge reading...:)

Karl


On 12/2/2010 5:46 PM, William Dunlap wrote:
> I didn't change your "rownames" to "row.names"
> because I figured you had the name you wanted
> but only forgot to include the quotes.  Both "rownames"
> and "row.names" are valid inputs, but they mean
> different things.  Howver, without the quotes you were
> passing in the contents of the object called
> rownames, which happens to be a function (aka a closure),
> not the string "rownames.  The quotes are needed to
> distinguish between things and names of things.
> Some functions (e.g., library() and help()) try
> to cover up this difference, leading to occasional
> difficulties using them.
>
> Bill Dunlap
> Spotfire, TIBCO Software
> wdunlap tibco.com
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Karl Brand [mailto:k.brand at erasmusmc.nl]
>> Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 2:22 AM
>> To: William Dunlap
>> Cc: r-help at r-project.org; Dimitris Rizopoulos
>> Subject: Re: [R] attempted merge() returns: cannot coerce
>> type 'closure' to vector of type 'any'
>>
>> Cheers Bill.
>>
>> You got me halfway, since:
>>
>>   >  temp<- merge(x=x, y=y[,17, drop=FALSE], by="rownames", sort=FALSE)
>> Error in fix.by(by.x, x) : 'by' must specify valid column(s)
>>
>> but, using "row.names" instead of "rownames", like:
>>   >  temp<- merge(x=x, y=y[,17, drop=FALSE], by="row.names",
>> sort=FALSE)
>>
>> works (but adds a column "Row.names").
>>
>> Which seems some what counter intuitive to me since i am
>> feeding in two
>> matrices to the merge function, which i understand have
>> 'rownames', not
>> 'row.names' as data frames have, right? Although the output
>> of merge()
>> is a data frame...
>>
>> thanks again,
>>
>> Karl
>>
>>
>> On 12/1/2010 6:08 PM, William Dunlap wrote:
>>> Try
>>>      by="rownames"
>>> instead of
>>>      by=rownames
>>>
>>> Bill Dunlap
>>> Spotfire, TIBCO Software
>>> wdunlap tibco.com
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org
>>>> [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Karl Brand
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 6:35 AM
>>>> To: Dimitris Rizopoulos
>>>> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
>>>> Subject: [R] attempted merge() returns: cannot coerce type
>>>> 'closure' to vector of type 'any'
>>>>
>>>> Hi Dimtris and esteemed useRs,
>>>>
>>>> I don't understand why i get this error message when
>>>> attempting to use
>>>> merge() -
>>>>
>>>>    >   temp<- merge(x, y[,17, drop=FALSE], by=rownames, sort=FALSE)
>>>> Error in as.vector(x, mode) :
>>>>      cannot coerce type 'closure' to vector of type 'any'
>>>>
>>>> It should work because:
>>>>
>>>>    >   all(rownames(x[order(rownames(x)),]) ==
>>>> + rownames(y[order(rownames(y[,17, drop=FALSE])),17,
>>>> drop=FALSE]) ....
>>>> [TRUNCATED]
>>>> [1] TRUE
>>>>
>>>> also:
>>>>
>>>>    >   class(x); class(y[,17, drop=FALSE])
>>>> [1] "matrix"
>>>> [1] "matrix"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Any idea why i cant use merge() in the normal way here?
>> I'm forced to
>>>> add the column using:
>>>>
>>>> temp.b<- cbind(x, y[match(rownames(x), rownames(y)),17])
>>>>
>>>> All insights appreciated for this leaRner,
>>>>
>>>> cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Karl
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Karl Brand<k.brand at erasmusmc.nl>
>>>> Department of Genetics
>>>> Erasmus MC
>>>> Dr Molewaterplein 50
>>>> 3015 GE Rotterdam
>>>> P +31 (0)10 704 3211 | F +31 (0)10 704 4743 | M +31 (0)642 777 268
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________________________
>>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>>
>>
>> --
>> Karl Brand<k.brand at erasmusmc.nl>
>> Department of Genetics
>> Erasmus MC
>> Dr Molewaterplein 50
>> 3015 GE Rotterdam
>> P +31 (0)10 704 3211 | F +31 (0)10 704 4743 | M +31 (0)642 777 268
>>

-- 
Karl Brand <k.brand at erasmusmc.nl>
Department of Genetics
Erasmus MC
Dr Molewaterplein 50
3015 GE Rotterdam
P +31 (0)10 704 3211 | F +31 (0)10 704 4743 | M +31 (0)642 777 268