From Waclaw.Marcin.Kusnierczyk at idi.ntnu.no  Tue Feb 10 14:36:56 2009
From: Waclaw.Marcin.Kusnierczyk at idi.ntnu.no (Wacek Kusnierczyk)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:36:56 +0100
Subject: [Rd] Bug in subsetting data frame (PR#13515)
In-Reply-To: <8b356f880902100459n321c321ew1ee4ab3c9a7ddb0f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20090210102506.CB966282EF48@mail.pubhealth.ku.dk>
	<8b356f880902100459n321c321ew1ee4ab3c9a7ddb0f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <499182F8.7000507@idi.ntnu.no>

Stavros Macrakis wrote:
> Don't know if this is the problem, but....
>
> It is a bad idea to set data.frame <- xxx since R has a single
> namespace for functions and variables.
>
>   

it doesn't seem to be the problem.

c = c(0)
c
# 0, not the function `c`
c(1)
# 1, not an error from application of 0 to 1

but

c = `list`
c(0)
# list, not a vector
c
# the function `list`, not the value 0


the issue is, if you use a name as an operator, it's the first *function
value*, not just *value*, found on the search path that will be used. 
in the example you referred to, if you assign a non-function value to
data.frame, an attempt to apply data.frame will get the function from
package:base:

data.frame = 0
find('data.frame')
find('data.frame', mode='function')


vQ



[Rd] Bug in subsetting data frame (PR#13515)
Wacek Kusnierczyk