This is unfortunately a bad habit many of us got from earlier languages like the C group of languages where 0 is FALSE and 1 (and anything non-zero) is TRUE. A language like Python is arguably even worse in that all kinds of things can be TRUE or FALSE in odd ways, like a non-empty string or even a random object which has declared how to decide if it qualifies as true.
R here has an issue with having so many ways to index a vector so that use of integers has another meaning and only indexing by Booleans has the meaning you want. So, you just need to adjust your mindset or perhaps write a little silly function like ensure_boolean() that checks if the vector it has is ALL just full of zero or 1 with probably no NA and otherwise returns the vector unchanged. If it is all 0/1, it converts it and returns the Boolean equivalent. Then instead of supplying the vector directly, most of the time, you can substitute ensure_boolean(vec) .... -----Original Message----- From: R-help <r-help-boun...@r-project.org> On Behalf Of Jeff Newmiller Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2021 11:18 AM To: r-help@r-project.org; Phillips Rogfield <thebudge...@gmail.com>; r-help@r-project.org Subject: Re: [R] How to spot/stop making the same mistake I practically never construct vectors like your `t` so it isn't a problem. And since I make a habit of verifying the types of all vectors I am using in expressions, if it did come up I would notice. On June 23, 2021 8:06:05 AM PDT, Phillips Rogfield <thebudge...@gmail.com> wrote: >I make the same mistake all over again. > >In particular, suppose we have: > >a = c(1,2,3,4,5) > >and a variable that equals 1 for the elements I want to select: > >t = c(1,1,1,0,0) > >To select the first 3 elements. > >The problem is that > >a[t] > >would repeat the first element 3 times ..... > >I have to either convert `t` to boolean: > >a[t==1] > >Or use `which` > >a[which(t==1)] > >How can I "spot" this error? > >It often happens in long scripts. > >Do I have to check the type each time? > >Do you have any suggestions? > >______________________________________________ >R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >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. -- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.
