[R] bug(?) in str() with strict.width = "cut" when appliedtodataframe with numeric component AND factor or character component withlongerlevels/strings

[Gerrit Eichner]

Thanks, Duncan,

for the good (indirect) hint: after a restart of R the problem is -- 
fortunately :-) -- not reproducible anymore for me either. The R session 
had been running for a longer time and I recall doing some 
(system-related) things outside of R that may have interfered with it; I 
just forgot to take that possibility into consideration. :(

  Regards  --  Gerrit

On Tue, 15 Oct 2013, Duncan Murdoch wrote:

> On 15/10/2013 7:53 AM, Gerrit Eichner wrote:
>> Dear list subscribers,
>> 
>> here is a small artificial example to demonstrate the problem that I
>> encountered when looking at the structure of a (larger) data frame that
>> comprised (among other components)
>> 
>> a numeric component of elements of the order of > 10000, and
>> 
>> a factor or character component with longer levels/strings:
>> 
>> 
>> k <- 43      # length of levels or character strings
>> n <- 11      # number of rows of data frame
>> M <- 10000   # order of magnitude of numerical values
>> 
>> set.seed( 47) # to reproduce the following artificial character string
>> longer.char.string <- paste( sample( letters, k, replace = TRUE),
>>                                collapse = "")
>> 
>> X <- data.frame( A = 1:n * M,
>>                    B = rep( longer.char.string, n))
>> 
>> 
>> The following call to str() gives apparently a wrong result
>> 
>> str( X, strict.width = "cut")
>> 
>> 'data.frame':   11 obs. of  2 variables:
>>    $ A: num  1e+04 2e+04 3e+04 4e+04 5e+04 6e+04 7e+04 8e+04 9e+04 1e+..
>>    $ A: num  1e+04 2e+04 3e+04 4e+04 5e+04 6e+04 7e+04 8e+04 9e+04 1e+..
>> 
>> 
>> whereas the correct result appears for str( X) or if you decrease k to 42
>> (isn't that "the answer"? ;-) ) or n to 10 or M to 1000 (or smaller,
>> respectively).
>> 
>> 
>> I tried to dig into the entrails of str.default(), where the cause may
>> lie, but got lost pretty soon. So, I am hoping that someone may already
>> have a work-around or patch (or dares to dig further)? Thank you for any
>> feedback!
>
> I can't reproduce this.  I don't have a 64 bit copy of 3.0.2 handy, but I 
> don't see it in 64 bit 3.0.1, or 64 bit 3.0.2-patched, or various 32 bit 
> versions.
>
> Is it reproducible for you?  It looks to me as though (if it isn't just 
> something weird on your system, e.g. an old copy of str() in your workspace), 
> it might be a memory protection problem:  something needed to be duplicated 
> but wasn't.  But unless I can see it happen, I can't start to fix it.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
>>
>>    Best regards  --  Gerrit
>> 
>> PS:
>> 
>> > sessionInfo()
>> 
>> R version 3.0.2 (2013-09-25)
>> Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
>> 
>> locale:
>> [1] LC_COLLATE=German_Germany.1252  LC_CTYPE=German_Germany.1252
>> [3] LC_MONETARY=German_Germany.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C
>> [5] LC_TIME=German_Germany.1252
>> 
>> attached base packages:
>> [1] splines   stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets
>> [7] methods   base
>> 
>> other attached packages:
>> [1] nparcomp_2.0     multcomp_1.2-21  mvtnorm_0.9-9996
>> [4] car_2.0-19       Hmisc_3.12-2     Formula_1.1-1
>> [7] survival_2.37-4  fortunes_1.5-0
>> 
>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>> [1] cluster_1.14.4  grid_3.0.2      lattice_0.20-23 MASS_7.3-29
>> [5] nnet_7.3-7      rpart_4.1-3     stats4_3.0.2    tools_3.0.2
>> 
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Dr. Gerrit Eichner                   Mathematical Institute, Room 212
>> gerrit.eichner at math.uni-giessen.de   Justus-Liebig-University Giessen
>> Tel: +49-(0)641-99-32104          Arndtstr. 2, 35392 Giessen, Germany
>> Fax: +49-(0)641-99-32109        http://www.uni-giessen.de/cms/eichner
>> 
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