R help - May 2007 - Equivalent of 'Retain' statement in R

Hi R,

 

What is the equivalent keyword for 'retain' statement of SAS in R?

 

Thank you, Shubha


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Shubha Vishwanath Karanth wrote:
> What is the equivalent keyword for 'retain' statement of SAS in R?
>
>   
There is none. This is strongly linked to the sequential operation of
the DATA step i SAS and R just does things differently. The lag()
function sometimes helps, but you may need an explicit for() loop, or
rethink the operation in vectorized terms.

-- 
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch [mailto:r-help-bounces at
stat.math.ethz.ch]
> On Behalf Of Shubha Vishwanath Karanth
> Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 7:40 AM
> To: r-help
> Subject: [R] Equivalent of 'Retain' statement in R
> 
> Hi R,
> 
> 
> 
> What is the equivalent keyword for 'retain' statement of SAS in R?
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, Shubha
> 
Shubha,

I don't believe there is an R equivalent to the SAS RETAIN keyword.  This is
because R does not make the same kind of distinction between variables read from
data files and those created by programming statements.  R is not SAS and you
will be most successful using R if you don't try to force SAS solutions into
it.

If you could give an example of some R code that you think requires the
equivalent of RETAIN, I am sure someone on the list will be able to help with an
appropriate R solution.

Dan

Daniel Nordlund
Bothell, WA USA