R devel - Feb 2017 - rep/rep.int: in NEWS, but not yet ported from trunk

For R 3.3.3, if 3.3.3 is really the last in 3.3.x series, I suggest reverting to
R 3.3.2 code (and removing the corresponding NEWS entry), if possible. Failure
of something like
rep(5, list(6))
makes some previously working R code broken in some situation. It is not good to
have in an R release that will last long, I think.
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 27/2/17, Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Rd] rep/rep.int: in NEWS, but not yet ported from trunk

 Cc: R-devel at r-project.org
 Date: Monday, 27 February, 2017, 4:20 PM
 
>>>>> Suharto Anggono Suharto Anggono via R-devel <r-devel at
r-project.org>
>>>>>     on Sun, 26 Feb 2017 12:02:44 +0000 writes:
    > According to "CHANGES IN R 3.3.2 patched" in NEWS, rep(x,
    > times) and rep.int(x, times) also work when 'times' has
    > length greater than one and has element larger than the
    > maximal integer. In fact, it is still not the case in R
    > 3.3.3 beta r72259. In seq.c
    > (https://svn.r-project.org/R/branches/R-3-3-branch/src/main/seq.c),
    > 'times' that is a vector with storage mode "double"
and
    > length greater than one is still changed first to storage
    > mode "integer". Number in 'times' that represents an
    > integer that is larger than the maximal integer becomes NA
    > and error is issued for such 'times'.  
    > I have put a comment,
    > https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=16932#c30
    > .

[[elided Yahoo spam]]

- I've changed the NEWS entry for R-patched (and moved the more
general statement to a new entry for R-devel). 
- The changes were quite substantial so I did not port them to
R-patched at the time..  We could have ported them later, but
not now, immediately before code freeze (of R 3.3.3).

- I would say   rep(5, list(6))  was never "meant to" work and had
worked
  incidentally only.
  OTOH, you are correct with your comments 11 & 29 in the about
  bug report, and your proposal to make the simple case   rep(s, list(7))
  work as previously seems ok to me.

However, for all this, we will concentrate on R-devel (to become
R 3.4.0).

Best regards,
Martin Maechler