[R] using "list=" to force evaluation before execution

[R. Michael Weylandt <michael.weylandt@gmail.com>]

Nope - you misunderstand entirely. Both of those functions have an argument named "list" and the code you quote is just the standard way of using a named argument. It could just as well read

rm(salmon = ls())

but that would be absurd. The list argument gets its name from the fact it (usually) takes a list**, no more no less. 

Michael

**Not strictly true here as ls() doesn't return a list, but just go with it. It's a vector of names, not a list in the data structure sense. 

On Jan 12, 2012, at 11:55 AM, Aditya Bhagwat <bhagwataditya at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> I have noticed that the expression 'list =' is sometimes used to tell R to
> evaluate something before executing it.
> 
> Two examples:
> 
> rm(list=ls())
> 
> a = 3
> myVarName = 'a'
> save(list=myVarName, file=...)
> 
> 
> I was wondering whether there is any documentation on this way of using
> "list". Which is a clearly different use than what ?list talks about, as
> the latter addresses the use of 'list' as a datastructure.
> 
> Thanks for your help,
> 
> Adi
> 
>    [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> ______________________________________________
> 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.