R help - Oct 2005 - Changing the value of variables passed to functions as arguments

Is it possible to write functions in such a way that, rather than 
having to write "a=function(a)", one can just write
"function(a)" and
have the variable passed as the argument be modified?

My real interest here is being able to invoke the editor by writing 
"ed(filename)" rather than filename=edit(filename).

Thanks,

--Paul

Check out:

http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/38536.html

On 10/5/05, Paul Baer <baer at stanford.edu>
wrote:
> Is it possible to write functions in such a way that, rather than
> having to write "a=function(a)", one can just write
"function(a)" and
> have the variable passed as the argument be modified?
>
> My real interest here is being able to invoke the editor by writing
> "ed(filename)" rather than filename=edit(filename).
>
> Thanks,
>
> --Paul
>
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>

Paul Baer <baer at stanford.edu> writes:
> Is it possible to write functions in such a way that, rather than 
> having to write "a=function(a)", one can just write
"function(a)" and
> have the variable passed as the argument be modified?
> 
> My real interest here is being able to invoke the editor by writing 
> "ed(filename)" rather than filename=edit(filename).
You might want to check out fix()...

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