From p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk  Fri Apr 10 11:02:44 2009
From: p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk (Peter Dalgaard)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:02:44 +0200
Subject: [Rd] type.convert (PR#13646)
In-Reply-To: <190A9235BCE8A847B3C81191064BA5FF043A020A@nets11ca>
References: <20090409085013.163D42832183@mail.pubhealth.ku.dk>
	<49DE2FA9.4020205@biostat.ku.dk>
	<190A9235BCE8A847B3C81191064BA5FF043A020A@nets11ca>
Message-ID: <49DF0B34.7030602@biostat.ku.dk>

Raberger, Stefan wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> each of the four PCs actually has the same locale setting: 
> 
>> Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE")
> [1] "German_Austria.1252"
> 
> (all the other settings returned by invoking Sys.getlocale() are identical as well).
> 
> Just to be sure (because it's displayed incorrectly in my browser on the bugtracking page): the character inside the type.convert function ought to be a "section"-sign (HTML Code &#167; or &sect; , in R "\247", and not a dot ".").

I saw it correctly. It's "\302\247" in UTF8 locales, which is of course 
the reason I suspected locale settings, but I can't seem to trigger the 
NA behaviour.

I'm at a loss here, but some ideas:

In the cases where it returns NA, what type is it? (I.e. 
storage.mode(type.convert(....)))

What do you get from

 > charToRaw("?")
[1] c2 a7

(a7, presumably, but better check).

-p

> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Peter Dalgaard [mailto:p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk] 
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 09. April 2009 19:26
> An: Raberger, Stefan
> Cc: r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch; R-bugs at r-project.org
> Betreff: Re: [Rd] type.convert (PR#13646)
> 
> s.raberger at innovest.at wrote:
>> Full_Name: Stefan Raberger
>> Version: 2.8.1
>> OS: Windows XP
>> Submission from: (NULL) (213.185.163.242)
>>
>>
>> Hi there, 
>>
>> I recently noticed some strange behaviour of the command "type.convert",
>> depending on the startup mode used. But there also seems to be different
>> behaviour on different PCs (all running the same OS and the same version of R).
>>
>> On PC1:
>> When I start R in SDI mode (RGui --no-save --no-restore --no-site-file
>> --no-init-file --no-environ) and try to convert, the result is
>>
>>> type.convert("?")
>> [1] NA
>>
>> If I use MDI mode (RGui --no-save --no-restore --no-site-file --no-init-file
>> --no-environ --no-Rconsole) instead, the result is
>>
>>> type.convert("?")
>> [1] ?
>> Levels: ?
>>
>> On PC2 it's exactly the other way round (SDI: ?, MDI: NA), on PC2 the result is
>> always NA, independent of the startup mode used, and on PC4 it's always ?.
>>
>> What's the result I should expect R to return, and why is it different in so
>> many cases?
> 
> Which locale does R think it is in in the four cases? 
> (Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE"), I think).
> 
> Might well not be a bug (so please don't file it as one).
> 
>> Any help is much appreciated!
>> Regards, Stefan
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 
> 


-- 
    O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             ?ster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
   c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
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[Rd] type.convert (PR#13646)
Peter Dalgaard