From james.f.hester at gmail.com  Fri Mar 17 13:10:13 2017
From: james.f.hester at gmail.com (Jim Hester)
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2017 08:10:13 -0400
Subject: [Rd] Support for user defined unary functions
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I agree there is no reason they _need_ to be the same precedence, but
I think SPECIALS are already have the proper precedence for both unary
and binary calls. Namely higher than all the binary operators (except
for `:`), but lower than the other unary operators. Even if we gave
unary specials their own precedence I think it would end up in the
same place.

    `%l%` <- function(x) tail(x, n = 1)
    %l% 1:5
    #> [1] 5
    %l% -5:-10
    #> [1] -10

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 6:57 PM, William Dunlap <wdunlap at tibco.com> wrote:
> I am biased against introducing new syntax, but if one is
> experimenting with it one should make sure the precedence feels right.
> I think the unary and binary minus-sign operators have different
> precedences so I see no a priori reason to make the unary and binary
> %xxx% operators to be the same.
> Bill Dunlap
> TIBCO Software
> wdunlap tibco.com
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 3:18 PM, Michael Lawrence
> <lawrence.michael at gene.com> wrote:
>> I guess this would establish a separate "namespace" of symbolic prefix
>> operators, %*% being an example in the infix case. So you could have stuff
>> like %?%, but for non-symbolic (spelled out stuff like %foo%), it's hard to
>> see the advantage vs. foo(x).
>>
>> Those examples you mention should probably be addressed (eventually) in the
>> core language, and it looks like people are already able to experiment, so
>> I'm not sure there's a significant impetus for this change.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 10:51 AM, Jim Hester <james.f.hester at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I used the `function(x)` form to explicitly show the function was
>>> being called with only one argument, clearly performance implications
>>> are not relevant for these examples.
>>>
>>> I think of this mainly as a gap in the tooling we provide users and
>>> package authors. R has native prefix `+1`, functional `f(1)` and infix
>>> `1 + 1` operators, but we only provide a mechanism to create user
>>> defined functional and infix operators.
>>>
>>> One could also argue that the user defined infix operators are also
>>> ugly and could be replaced by `f(a, b)` calls as well; beauty is in
>>> the eye of the beholder.
>>>
>>> The unquote example [1] shows one example where this gap in tooling
>>> caused authors to co-opt existing unary exclamation operator, this
>>> same gap is part of the reason the formula [2] and question mark [3]
>>> operators have been used elsewhere in non standard contexts.
>>>
>>> If the language provided package authors with a native way to create
>>> unary operators like it already does for the other operator types
>>> these machinations would be unnecessary.
>>>
>>> [1]: https://github.com/hadley/rlang/blob/master/R/tidy-unquote.R#L17
>>> [2]: https://cran.r-project.org/package=ensurer
>>> [3]: https://cran.r-project.org/package=types
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 1:04 PM, Gabriel Becker <gmbecker at ucdavis.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Martin,
>>> >
>>> > Jim can speak directly to his motivations; I don't claim to be able to do
>>> > so. That said, I suspect this is related to a conversation on twitter
>>> about
>>> > wanting an infix "unquote" operator in the context of the non-standard
>>> > evaluation framework Hadley Wickham and Lionel Henry (and possibly
>>> others)
>>> > are working on.
>>> >
>>> > They're currently using !!! and !! for things related to this, but this
>>> > effectively requires non-standard parsing, as ~!!x is interpreted as
>>> > ~(`!!`(x)) rather than ~(!(!(x)) as the R parser understands it. Others
>>> and
>>> > I pointed out this was less than desirable, but if something like it was
>>> > going to happen it would hopefully happen in the language specification,
>>> > rather than in a package (and also hopefully not using !! specifically).
>>> >
>>> > Like you, I actually tend to prefer the functional form myself in most
>>> > cases. There are functional forms that would work for the above case
>>> (e.g.,
>>> > something like the .() that DBI uses), but that's probably off topic
>>> here,
>>> > and not a decision I'm directly related to anyway.
>>> >
>>> > Best,
>>> > ~G
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 9:51 AM, Martin Maechler
>>> > <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> >>>>> Jim Hester <james.f.hester at gmail.com>
>>> >> >>>>>     on Thu, 16 Mar 2017 12:31:56 -0400 writes:
>>> >>
>>> >>     > Gabe,
>>> >>     > The unary functions have the same precedence as normal SPECIALS
>>> >>     > (although the new unary forms take precedence over binary
>>> SPECIALS).
>>> >>     > So they are lower precedence than unary + and -. Yes, both of your
>>> >>     > examples are valid with this patch, here are the results and
>>> quoted
>>> >>     > forms to see the precedence.
>>> >>
>>> >>     > `%chr%` <- function(x) as.character(x)
>>> >>
>>> >>   [more efficient would be     `%chr%` <- as.character]
>>> >>
>>> >>     > `%identical%` <- function(x, y) identical(x, y)
>>> >>     > quote("100" %identical% %chr% 100)
>>> >>     > #>  "100" %identical% (`%chr%`(100))
>>> >>
>>> >>     > "100" %identical% %chr% 100
>>> >>     > #> [1] TRUE
>>> >>
>>> >>     > `%num%` <- as.numeric
>>> >>     > quote(1 + - %num% "5")
>>> >>     > #> 1 + -(`%num%`("5"))
>>> >>
>>> >>     > 1 + - %num% "5"
>>> >>     > #> [1] -4
>>> >>
>>> >>     > Jim
>>> >>
>>> >> I'm sorry to be a bit of a spoiler to "coolness", but
>>> >> you may know that I like to  applaud Norm Matloff for his book
>>> >> title "The Art of R Programming",
>>> >> because for me good code should also be beautiful to some extent.
>>> >>
>>> >> I really very much prefer
>>> >>
>>> >>        f(x)
>>> >> to    %f% x
>>> >>
>>> >> and hence I really really really cannot see why anybody would prefer
>>> >> the ugliness of
>>> >>
>>> >>            1 + - %num% "5"
>>> >> to
>>> >>            1 + -num("5")
>>> >>
>>> >> (after setting  num <- as.numeric )
>>> >>
>>> >> Martin
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>     > On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 12:01 PM, Gabriel Becker
>>> >> <gmbecker at ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>>> >>     >> Jim,
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> This seems cool. Thanks for proposing it. To be concrete, he
>>> >> user-defined
>>> >>     >> unary operations would be of the same precedence (or just
>>> slightly
>>> >> below?)
>>> >>     >> built-in unary ones? So
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> "100" %identical% %chr% 100
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> would work and return TRUE under your patch?
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> And  with %num% <- as.numeric, then
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> 1 + - %num% "5"
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> would also be legal (though quite ugly imo) and work?
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> Best,
>>> >>     >> ~G
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 7:24 AM, Jim Hester
>>> >> <james.f.hester at gmail.com>
>>> >>     >> wrote:
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> R has long supported user defined binary (infix) functions,
>>> >> defined
>>> >>     >>> with `%fun%`. A one line change [1] to R's grammar allows users
>>> to
>>> >>     >>> define unary (prefix) functions in the same manner.
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> `%chr%` <- function(x) as.character(x)
>>> >>     >>> `%identical%` <- function(x, y) identical(x, y)
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> %chr% 100
>>> >>     >>> #> [1] "100"
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> %chr% 100 %identical% "100"
>>> >>     >>> #> [1] TRUE
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> This seems a natural extension of the existing functionality and
>>> >>     >>> requires only a minor change to the grammar. If this change
>>> seems
>>> >>     >>> acceptable I am happy to provide a complete patch with suitable
>>> >> tests
>>> >>     >>> and documentation.
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> [1]:
>>> >>     >>> Index: src/main/gram.y
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >> ===================================================================
>>> >>     >>> --- src/main/gram.y     (revision 72358)
>>> >>     >>> +++ src/main/gram.y     (working copy)
>>> >>     >>> @@ -357,6 +357,7 @@
>>> >>     >>> |       '+' expr %prec UMINUS           { $$ = xxunary($1,$2);
>>> >>     >>> setId( $$, @$); }
>>> >>     >>> |       '!' expr %prec UNOT             { $$ = xxunary($1,$2);
>>> >>     >>> setId( $$, @$); }
>>> >>     >>> |       '~' expr %prec TILDE            { $$ = xxunary($1,$2);
>>> >>     >>> setId( $$, @$); }
>>> >>     >>> +       |       SPECIAL expr                    { $$ =
>>> >> xxunary($1,$2);
>>> >>     >>> setId( $$, @$); }
>>> >>     >>> |       '?' expr                        { $$ = xxunary($1,$2);
>>> >>     >>> setId( $$, @$); }
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> |       expr ':'  expr                  { $$ =
>>> >>     >>> xxbinary($2,$1,$3);      setId( $$, @$); }
>>> >>     >>>
>>> >>     >>> ______________________________________________
>>> >>     >>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>>> >>     >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >>
>>> >>     >> --
>>> >>     >> Gabriel Becker, PhD
>>> >>     >> Associate Scientist (Bioinformatics)
>>> >>     >> Genentech Research
>>> >>
>>> >>     > ______________________________________________
>>> >>     > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>>> >>     > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Gabriel Becker, PhD
>>> > Associate Scientist (Bioinformatics)
>>> > Genentech Research
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>>
>>
>>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel



[Rd] Support for user defined unary functions
Jim Hester