search for: crazy_notworking_fun

...turning a list? This doesn't really fix the problem either though Because a single list of length > 1 *is a valid thing to return from an R function*. I think, like in Julia, you'd need to declare the set of things being returned, and perhaps map them to the variables you want assigned crazy_notworking_fun <- function() { return(a = 5, b = 65, c = 275) } [a_val = a, b_val = b] <- crazy_notworking_fun() Or even, [a_val <- a, b_val <-b] <- crazy_notworking_fun() In that case, however, it becomes somewhat unclear (to me at least) what only_val <- crazy_notworking_fun() would d...

Thanks Duncan and Ivan for the careful thoughts. I'm not sure I can follow all aspects you raised, but to give my limited take on a few: > your proposal violates a very basic property of the language, i.e. that all statements are expressions and have a value. > What's the value of 1 + (A, C = init_matrices()). I'm not sure I see the point here. I evaluated 1 + (d =