R help - Oct 2001 - vectors / matrices

Hi, 

a friend of mine came across this

R> x <- 1:5
R> cbind(x,x)
     x x
[1,] 1 1
[2,] 2 2
[3,] 3 3
[4,] 4 4
[5,] 5 5
R> rbind(x,x)
  [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
x    1    2    3    4    5
x    1    2    3    4    5


x is a vector and therefore has no dim-attribute. Obviously cbind treats x
as a col-vector but rbind treats x as a row-vector, that is: two
functions have a different view on x. I'm sure there is a
good reason for this but I could not find it ...

Torsten

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>>>>> "Torsten" == Torsten Hothorn <Torsten.Hothorn
at rzmail.uni-erlangen.de> writes:
    Torsten> Hi, 

    Torsten> a friend of mine came across this

    R> x <- 1:5
    R> cbind(x,x)
    Torsten>      x x
    Torsten> [1,] 1 1
    Torsten> [2,] 2 2
    Torsten> [3,] 3 3
    Torsten> [4,] 4 4
    Torsten> [5,] 5 5

    R> rbind(x,x)
    Torsten>   [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
    Torsten> x    1    2    3    4    5
    Torsten> x    1    2    3    4    5


    Torsten> x is a vector and therefore has no dim-attribute. Obviously
    Torsten> cbind treats x as a col-vector but rbind treats x as a
    Torsten> row-vector, that is: two functions have a different view on
    Torsten> x. I'm sure there is a good reason for this but I could not
    Torsten> find it ...

This*) has been the ``S view'' on vectors forever, and rightly so IMO.
BTW, the same has been true for APL which in some sense was mother to S,
Matlab, etc.  It might well be that matlab / octave differ here, but I *do*
prefer the S way quite a bit.

*) Losely speaking:
  ``A vector used in array context is coerced to whatever array is
reasonable''

Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>
http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/
Seminar fuer Statistik, ETH-Zentrum  LEO D10	Leonhardstr. 27
ETH (Federal Inst. Technology)	8092 Zurich	SWITZERLAND
phone: x-41-1-632-3408		fax: ...-1228			<><
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