[R] c(), or cat(), or paste(), all cause unwanted reordering

[Erik Iverson]

Hello,

Jeff Brown wrote:

> I would expect the following:
> 
> paste(
> 	as.character( cat( rep( ".", 2 ) ) ),	
> 	"a string",
> 	as.character( cat( rep( ".", 3 ) ) )
> );
> 
> to yield this string: ". . a string . . .", but instead it yields this:
> 
>> . .. . .[1] " a string "
> 

cat is writing its output to the console, not creating an object like 
you want.  notice the second cat will return (and write to the console) 
before paste.

You need the collapse argument to paste, forget about cat for this.

Try:

pc <- function(...) paste(..., collapse = " ")
rd <- function(n) rep(".", n)
pc(pc(rd(2)), "a string", pc(rd(3)))


Probably many other ways.

--Erik