[R] Lattice plot within a "for" loop does not happen?

[Uwe Ligges]

Barry Rowlingson wrote:

> 
>> BUT, when I stick this in a loop, I get a bunch of blank graphics  
>> devices. This happens even if the loop only executes once. I could  
>> just go through and do these one by one, but I was curious if I was  
>> overlooking something obvious. Thank you for any advice.
> 
> 
>  You're overlooking something like line 800 of the documentation for 
> xyplot:
> 
>  Value:
> 
>      An object of class ``trellis''. The `update' method can be used to
>      update components of the object and the `print' method (usually
>      called by default) will plot it on an appropriate plotting device.
> 
> 
>  xyplot doesn't actually make any marks on the screen. Oh no. It returns 
> an object. You have to make that object make the marks on the screen. 
> This happens automatically when you run something interactively, but not 

Baz, actually, printing happens only under two circumstances, AFAIK:
1. by wrapping in print()
2. automatically by evaluating an expression (which might be the object 
name only) in the top level (R_GlobalEnv), but only if no assignment 
takes place.

In particular, automatical (point 2 above) printing happens also in 
non-interactive sessions like
   R CMD BATCH
calls.

The idea of returning an object is very nice, I think. You can calculate 
on the object and print the modified object (well, in fact, I rarely use 
lattice myself, though).

Best,
Uwe


> inside a function.
> 
>  So wrap your xyplot call in a print() function inside your loop:
> 
>  for(i in 1:10){
>    print(xyplot(....whatever....))
>  }
> 
>  Its probably in the R-FAQ as well, since my original feeling was that 
> this behaviour was chosen in order to confuse people and see how many 
> people read the FAQ... :)
> 
> Baz
> 
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