R devel - Dec 2007 - [Kurt.Hornik@wu-wien.ac.at: Re: range( <dates>, na.rm = TRUE )] (PR#10508)

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:44:57 +0100
To: Steve Mongin <sjm at ccbr.umn.edu>
Cc: cran at r-project.org
Subject: Re: range( <dates>, na.rm = TRUE )
In-Reply-To: <200711062044.OAA14064 at minnow.ccbr.umn.edu>
Reply-To: Kurt.Hornik at wu-wien.ac.at
From: Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik at wu-wien.ac.at>
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>>>>> Steve Mongin writes:
> Dear CRAN:
> I am running 'R' on Linux as follows:
>> version
>                _                           
>   platform       i686-redhat-linux-gnu       
>   arch           i686                        
>   os             linux-gnu                   
>   system         i686, linux-gnu             
>   status                                     
>   major          2                           
>   minor          6.0                         
>   year           2007                        
>   month          10                          
>   day            03                          
>   svn rev        43063                       
>   language       R                           
>   version.string R version 2.6.0 (2007-10-03)
> I have a question about the behavior of "range()" with missing
dates.
> With the previous version (2.4?) , the command:
>> range( as.Date( c( "2007-11-06", NA ) ), na.rm = TRUE )
> yielded:
>> [1] "2007-11-06" "2007-11-06"
> Now I get:
>> [1] NA NA
> Is this a bug?
> Yes, I see in the "What's New" page:
>   "The Math2 and Summary groups (round, signif, all, any, max, min,
>    summ, prod, range) are now primitive."
> Is the "primitive" characteristic supposed to behave as above
with
> missing dates?
> Thanks for any help that you can provide.
This is really a question for r-devel or r-bugs, I think, but not for
the CRAN maintainers.

I would think it is a bug.  Perhaps simply file a bug report?

Best
- -k
------- End of forwarded message -------

Kurt.Hornik at wu-wien.ac.at wrote:
> ------- Start of forwarded message -------
> Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:44:57 +0100
> To: Steve Mongin <sjm at ccbr.umn.edu>
> Cc: cran at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: range( <dates>, na.rm = TRUE )
> In-Reply-To: <200711062044.OAA14064 at minnow.ccbr.umn.edu>
> Reply-To: Kurt.Hornik at wu-wien.ac.at
> From: Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik at wu-wien.ac.at>
> X-AntiVirus: checked by AntiVir MailGate (version: 2.1.3-2; AVE: 7.6.0.34;
VDF: 7.0.0.210; host: fsme.wu-wien.ac.at)
> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.90.3/4768/Tue Nov 13 18:25:08 2007 on
pocken.wu-wien.ac.at
> X-Virus-Status: Clean
>
>   
>>>>>> Steve Mongin writes:
>>>>>>             
>
>   
>> Dear CRAN:
>> I am running 'R' on Linux as follows:
>>     
>
>   
>>> version
>>>       
>>                _                           
>>   platform       i686-redhat-linux-gnu       
>>   arch           i686                        
>>   os             linux-gnu                   
>>   system         i686, linux-gnu             
>>   status                                     
>>   major          2                           
>>   minor          6.0                         
>>   year           2007                        
>>   month          10                          
>>   day            03                          
>>   svn rev        43063                       
>>   language       R                           
>>   version.string R version 2.6.0 (2007-10-03)
>>     
>
>
>   
>> I have a question about the behavior of "range()" with
missing dates.
>>     
>
>   
>> With the previous version (2.4?) , the command:
>>     
>
>   
>>> range( as.Date( c( "2007-11-06", NA ) ), na.rm = TRUE )
>>>       
>
>   
>> yielded:
>>     
>
>   
>>> [1] "2007-11-06" "2007-11-06"
>>>       
>
>   
>> Now I get:
>>     
>
>   
>>> [1] NA NA
>>>       
>
>   
>> Is this a bug?
>>     
>
>   
>> Yes, I see in the "What's New" page:
>>     
>
>   
>>   "The Math2 and Summary groups (round, signif, all, any, max,
min,
>>    summ, prod, range) are now primitive."
>>     
>
>   
>> Is the "primitive" characteristic supposed to behave as above
with
>> missing dates?
>>     
>
>   
>> Thanks for any help that you can provide.
>>     
>
> This is really a question for r-devel or r-bugs, I think, but not for
> the CRAN maintainers.
>
> I would think it is a bug.  Perhaps simply file a bug report?
>
>   
Again? ;-)

The bug is here:
> range.default
function (..., na.rm = FALSE, finite = FALSE)
{
    x <- c(..., recursive = TRUE)
    if (is.numeric(x)) {
        if (finite)
            x <- x[is.finite(x)]
        else if (na.rm)
            x <- x[!is.na(x)]
    }
    c(min(x), max(x))
}
<environment: namespace:base>

Objects of class Date are not considered numeric, so we end up taking
min and max without removing NA.

One solution could be

if (is.numeric(x) || inherits(x, "Date") ){....}


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