R devel - Nov 2016 - ifelse() woes ... can we agree on a ifelse2() ?

Related to the length of 'ifelse' result, I want to say that
"example of different return modes" in ?ifelse led me to perceive a
wrong thing in the past.

     ## example of different return modes:
     yes <- 1:3
     no <- pi^(0:3)
     typeof(ifelse(NA,    yes, no)) # logical
     typeof(ifelse(TRUE,  yes, no)) # integer
     typeof(ifelse(FALSE, yes, no)) # double

As the result of each 'ifelse' call is not printed, I thought that the
length of the result is 3. In fact, the length of the result is 1.
I realize just now that the length of 'no' is different from
'yes'. The length of 'yes' is 3, the length of 'no' is
4.



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 Subject: Re: ifelse() woes ... can we agree on a ifelse2() ?
 To: R-devel at lists.R-project.org
 Date: Sunday, 27 November, 2016, 8:50 AM
 
In all of the proposed 'ifelse'-like functions so far, including from me
(that I labeled as 'ifelse2', following Martin Maechler) and from Martin
Maechler, the length of the result equals the length of 'test', like in
'ifelse'. There is no recycling of 'test'.

> Related to the length of 'ifelse' result, I want to say that
"example of different return modes" in ?ifelse led me to perceive a
wrong thing in the past.
>      ## example of different return modes:
>      yes <- 1:3
>      no <- pi^(0:3)
>      typeof(ifelse(NA,    yes, no)) # logical
>      typeof(ifelse(TRUE,  yes, no)) # integer
>      typeof(ifelse(FALSE, yes, no)) # double
> 
> As the result of each 'ifelse' call is not printed, I thought that
the length of the result is 3. In fact, the length of the result is 1.
"of course"... (;-)

But this indeed proves that the example is too sophisticated and
not helpful/clear enough.
Is this better?

## example of different return modes (and 'test' alone determining
length):
yes <- 1:3
no  <- pi^(1:4)
utils::str( ifelse(NA,    yes, no) ) # logical, length 1
utils::str( ifelse(TRUE,  yes, no) ) # integer, length 1
utils::str( ifelse(FALSE, yes, no) ) # double,  length 1


> I realize just now that the length of 'no' is different from
'yes'. The length of 'yes' is 3, the length of 'no' is
4.