R devel - Apr 2013 - is.vector(as.vector(x, m), m) not always TRUE

In the man page for as.vector() (same as man page for vector()):

      Writers of methods for ?as.vector? need to take care to follow the
      conventions of the default method.  In particular

         ? Argument ?mode? can be ?"any"?, any of the atomic modes,
           ?"list"?, ?"expression"?, ?"symbol"?,
?"pairlist"? or one of
           the aliases ?"double"? and ?"name"?.

         ? The return value should be of the appropriate mode.  For
           ?mode = "any"? this means an atomic vector or list.

         ? Attributes should be treated appropriately: in particular
           when the result is an atomic vector there should be no
           attributes, not even names.

         ? ?is.vector(as.vector(x, m), m)? should be true for any mode
           ?m?, including the default ?"any"?.

But:

   > is.vector(as.vector("a", "name"), "name")
   [1] FALSE

Mmmh, the default method itself doesn't seem to follow its own
conventions :-/

Cheers,
H.

 > sessionInfo()
R version 3.0.0 (2013-04-03)
Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)

locale:
  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
  [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
  [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
  [7] LC_PAPER=C                 LC_NAME=C
  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_3.0.0

-- 
Herv? Pag?s

Program in Computational Biology
Division of Public Health Sciences
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
1100 Fairview Ave. N, M1-B514
P.O. Box 19024
Seattle, WA 98109-1024

E-mail: hpages at fhcrc.org
Phone:  (206) 667-5791
Fax:    (206) 667-1319

On Apr 24, 2013, at 01:48 , Herv? Pag?s wrote:
> In the man page for as.vector() (same as man page for vector()):
> 
>     Writers of methods for ?as.vector? need to take care to follow the
>     conventions of the default method.  In particular
> 
>        ? Argument ?mode? can be ?"any"?, any of the atomic modes,
>          ?"list"?, ?"expression"?,
?"symbol"?, ?"pairlist"? or one of
>          the aliases ?"double"? and ?"name"?.
> 
>        ? The return value should be of the appropriate mode.  For
>          ?mode = "any"? this means an atomic vector or list.
> 
>        ? Attributes should be treated appropriately: in particular
>          when the result is an atomic vector there should be no
>          attributes, not even names.
> 
>        ? ?is.vector(as.vector(x, m), m)? should be true for any mode
>          ?m?, including the default ?"any"?.
> 
> But:
> 
>  > is.vector(as.vector("a", "name"),
"name")
>  [1] FALSE
> 
> Mmmh, the default method itself doesn't seem to follow its own
> conventions :-/
> 
Looks like there should be a straightforward fix, since
> is.vector(as.vector("a", "name"), "symbol")
[1] TRUE

so it is just a matter of implementing "name" as synomyous with
"symbol".

-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com