R devel - Jul 2022 - Feature Request: Allow Underscore Separated Numbers

Yes, Ben, your point (way below) is correct. As I noted, as.numeric() also
truncated a normal notation so I did not worry about it as I could tweak the
system and both versions (underscores too) would now show more precision. 

I can think of oodles more ways to allow showing big numbers as readable
such as writing them in segments and concatenating them with paste0() as in:

assembleint <- function(...) as.integer(paste(..., sep=""))
> assembleint("12", "345", "678")
[1] 12345678

But it really at some point is not very readable. I was a bit annoyed at the
underscore method used in other languages I know as for me the comma is the
normal separator but commas are so deeply embedded for various uses in just
about any language, that they could not be allowed within a grouping of
digits. Few things can be but "_" maybe could as it is allowed in
other
identifiers and in Python, even at the start in some places.

But now I realize that others have different methods. I recently saw someone
using a CSV file with numbers that use comma as a decimal delimiter and thus
they use semicolon to keep the fields apart.  But we have R functions that
easily handle importing from that as long as once inside, we deal with them
without seeing them again unless needed.

I am thinking of all the regular expressions that would break badly if
underscores in digits are allowed. All the [0-9] constructs might need to be
[0-9_] and \d might need to be redefined. The end of a number might be
undefined if it bumped up against something else with an underscore at the
edge.

If we were re-inventing everything today, I suspect we might have started
with something like UNICODE with lots more symbols than ASCII or EBCDIC had
and that might include a globally defined comma-separator symbol that was
never used except with a number so it would be part of the definition of
what numeric digits are. But that is not going to happen.

-----Original Message-----
From: R-devel <r-devel-bounces at r-project.org> On Behalf Of Ben Bolker
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2022 8:30 PM
To: r-devel at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [Rd] Feature Request: Allow Underscore Separated Numbers



On 2022-07-14 8:21 p.m., avi.e.gross at gmail.com wrote:
> Devin,
> 
> I cannot say anyone wants to tweak R after the fact to accept numeric 
> items with underscores as that might impact all kinds of places.
> 
> Can I suggest a workaround that allows you to enter your integer (or 
> floating point which gets truncated) using this:
> 
> underint <- function(text) as.integer(gsub("_+", "",
text))
> 
> Use a call to that anywhere you want an int like:
> 
> result <- underint("1_000_000") +
underint("6___6__6_6") - 6000
> 
> results in: 100666
> 
> If you want to see the result with underscores, using something like 
> scales::comma as in
> 
> You can also make similar functions that use as.numeric() and 
> as.double() but note that this allows you to enter data at somewhat 
> greater expense and as text/strings. Obviously a similar technique can 
> be used with regular expressions of many kinds to wipe out or replace 
> anything, including commas with this:
> 
> undernumeric <- function(text) as.numeric(gsub("[,_]+",
"", text))
> 
> undernumeric("123,456.789_012")
> [1] 123456.8
> 
> Yes, it truncated it but I am sure any combo of underscores and commas 
> will be removed. It also truncates the same thing with all numerals and a
period.
> 
   It's not really 'truncated', it's just printed with limited
precision.
(Sorry if I'm telling you something you already know ...)

options(digits = 22)
undernumeric("123,456.789_012")
[1] 123456.7890119999938179

(and there's floating point inaccuracy rearing its ugly head again;
options(digits=16) works well for this example ...)
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: R-devel <r-devel-bounces at r-project.org> On Behalf Of Devin 
> Marlin
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2022 3:54 PM
> To: r-devel at r-project.org
> Subject: [Rd] Feature Request: Allow Underscore Separated Numbers
> 
> Hello,
> 
> After using R for a number of years, and venturing into other 
> languages, I've noticed the ones with the ability to enter numbers 
> separated by underscores for readability (like 100000 as 100_000) make 
> life a whole lot easier, especially when debugging. Is this a feature 
> that could be implemented in R?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> --
> *Devin Marlin*
> 
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> 
> ______________________________________________
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> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
--
Dr. Benjamin Bolker
Professor, Mathematics & Statistics and Biology, McMaster University
Director, School of Computational Science and Engineering
(Acting) Graduate chair, Mathematics & Statistics

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On 2022-07-14 8:21 p.m., avi.e.gross at gmail.com wrote:
> Devin,
>
> I cannot say anyone wants to tweak R after the fact to accept numeric
> items with underscores as that might impact all kinds of places.
>
I am not sure that the feature request of Devin Marlin was correctly understood.
I guess that he thought about adding syntactic sugar to numeric literals in the
language.
Functions such as as.numeric(), or read.csv() would not be changed.

The main difference would be to make valid code that currently is a "syntax
error", such as:
> 3*100_000
Error: unexpected input in "3*100_"

Breaking code with that feature is possible but improbable.
Indeed, code expecting that str2lang("3*100_000") make a syntax error
(catching the error with try) would break.
Most code generating other code then parsing it with str2lang() should be fine,
because it would generate old-style code with normal numeric constants.

--
Sincerely
Andr? GILLIBERT

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