R devel - Feb 2008 - number formsat

PROBLEM ONE
In my way of using R in print and plots,
R severely ignores formatting requests for numbers.
E.g.,
> n1=2008021323595999
> n1
[1] 2.008021e+15
> print(n1,digits=16)
[1] 2008021323595999
> print(n1,digits=18)
[1] 2008021323595999
> print(n1,digits=15)
[1] 2008021323595999
The e+15 form for similar numbers also 
appears in the tic mark labels in plots, 
but with yet other counts of significant digits.
PROBLEM TWO
I need to use a function that I could write,
since I have done it in several other languages,
to convert my calendar times of various 
lengths into linear time as I read the data.
Then I need to use an inverse function to 
convert the linear time for the tic mark labels
of plots of the data, and for printouts.
Where do I look to learn how to do this in R?


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Hill0093,

On Feb 14, 2008, at 5:43 PM, hill0093 wrote:
> PROBLEM ONE
> In my way of using R in print and plots,
> R severely ignores formatting requests for numbers.
> E.g.,
>> n1=2008021323595999
>> n1
> [1] 2.008021e+15
>> print(n1,digits=16)
> [1] 2008021323595999
>> print(n1,digits=18)
> [1] 2008021323595999
>> print(n1,digits=15)
> [1] 2008021323595999
You are not requesting specific formatting, you are requesting  
*significant digits* hence the above is as expected. For output  
formatting, see ?sprintf and ?formatC.

> The e+15 form for similar numbers also  appears in the tic mark  
> labels in plots,  but with yet other counts of significant digits.
> PROBLEM TWO
> I need to use a function that I could write, since I have done it in  
> several other languages, to convert my calendar times of various   
> lengths into linear time as I read the data. Then I need to use an  
> inverse function to  convert the linear time for the tic mark labels  
> of plots of the data, and for printouts.
> Where do I look to learn how to do this in R?
>
Time types in R are linear, try using them (see ?DateTimeClasses and ? 
as.POSIXct).

Please post help requests to R-help in the future.

Thanks,
Simon