R help - May 2004 - weirdness in sourc()ing a dump() (bug?)

Hi all,

I dump the result of a long simulation, which I know has run to 
completion and returned a fairly complex list of lists of things. 
However, when I try to read it back in, I get the following error:

 > source ('../SIMULATIONS/run.1.R')
Error in structure(list(do.extinction.runs, alpha = 1.8, delta.change = 
0.005,  : Object "do.extinction.runs" not found

I think the offending part of my dump is:

<SNIP OF LOTS OF DATA>
call.list = structure(list(do.extinction.runs, alpha = 1.8,
         delta.change = 0.005, delta.bar = 0.01, extinction = seq(0.6,
             0.8, 0.005)), .Names = c("", "alpha",
"delta.change",
     "delta.bar", "extinction"))),
</SNIP>

The return statement for the simulation is:

<SNIP>
return(list (DATA=my.data, MEANS=data.frame(EXT.CUT=means[,1], 
MEAN=means[,2]), run.date=date(), call.list=as.list(match.call())))
</SNIP>

As you can see, I am trying to return my call parameters as a list (so I 
can write appropriate titles on my graphs).  It works just fine when do

 > a = do.extinction.runs(blah, blah)

but not when I do:

 > a = do.ext...
 > dump('a', 'foo.R')
 > source ('foo.R')

Any thoughts?  Seems like a bug in dump, and I would be happy to help 
squash it if the right person gets hold of me.

Thanks much to a list that might be getting tired of me this week!

W

Webb Sprague <wwsprague at ucdavis.edu> writes:
> return(list (DATA=my.data, MEANS=data.frame(EXT.CUT=means[,1],
> MEAN=means[,2]), run.date=date(), call.list=as.list(match.call())))
> </SNIP>
> 
> As you can see, I am trying to return my call parameters as a list (so
> I can write appropriate titles on my graphs).  It works just fine when
> do
> Any thoughts?  Seems like a bug in dump, and I would be happy to help
> squash it if the right person gets hold of me.
Yep, it's a bug. A minimal version is
> f <- function()as.list(match.call())
> dput(f())
list(f)
> dput(f(),"xx")
> dget("xx")
[[1]]
function()as.list(match.call())

(or an error if you remove f first). What should happen is probably
> dput(f)
list(as.name("f"))

Similarly
> f <- function()match.call()
> dput(f())
f()
> dput(f(),"xx")
> rm(f)
> dget("xx")
Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : couldn't find function "f"

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907