[R] somebody help me about this error message...

[Greg Snow]

Others answered your question.  I would however suggest that you asked the wrong question.

If you really feel the need for your future self to serve some serious penance for past or near future misdeeds, then continuing with this strategy is one way to do that (just please don't inflict your suffering on us when this ends up causing more problems than it solves).

If on the other hand, you want to avoid future headaches and become a better programmer, then learn to use lists rather than global variables.

a <- list()
for( i in 1:5 ) {
 a[[ paste('a',i,sep="") ]] <- 1:i
	### or simpler a[[i]] <- 1:i
}

If you use the simpler version, then you could still get the names by:
names(a) <- paste('a', 1:5, sep="")

Then

a[[2]] <- 4
a[['a2']] <- 4
a$a2 <- 4
a <- within(a, a2<-4)

will all do the substitutions.

See the help for the within and with functions as well as fortune(236) and the last few lines of FAQ 7.21.


-- 
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
801.408.8111


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Lee
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 10:14 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] somebody help me about this error message...
> 
> 
> I created variables automatically like this way
> 
> for(i in 1:5){
> 	nam <- paste("a",i,sep="")
> 	assign(nam,1:i)
> }
> 
> and then, i want to insert a new data into "a2" variable. so, i did
> next
> sentence
> 
> paste("a",2,sep="") <- 4
> 
> so, i got this error message
> 
> Error in get(paste("a", 2, sep = ""))[1] <- 4 :
>   target of assignment expands to non-language object
> 
> anyone knows abou this error message and tell me how to solve thie
> problem,
> please......
> --
> View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/somebody-help-me-
> about-this-error-message-tp1571700p1571700.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
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