Consider the following function:
addAmount <- function(x, amount) {
stopifnot(length(x) == 1)
return(x + amount)
}
It can be used to add some amount
to x
:
> addAmount(x = 5, amount = 3)
[1] 8
> addAmount(x = 2, amount = 3)
[1] 5
However, x
must be of length 1:
> addAmount(x = 7:9, amount = 3)
Error: length(x) == 1 is not TRUE
I added this restriction intentionally for exemplification.
Using Vectorize
, it is possible to pass in a vector for x
:
> Vectorize(addAmount)(x = 7:9, amount = 3)
[1] 10 11 12
So far, so good.
However, I'd like to turn my addAmount
function into a "add 3" function, using currying:
add3 <- functional::Curry(addAmount, amount = 3)
This works as expected if x
is of length 1 and fails (as expected) if x
is not of length 1:
> add3(x = 5)
[1] 8
> add3(x = 7:9)
Error: length(x) == 1 is not TRUE
The problem is: add3
cannot be vectorized:
> Vectorize(add3)(x = 7:9)
Error: length(x) == 1 is not TRUE
Somehow, the curried function is not "compatible" with Vectorize
, i.e. it behaves as if it had not been vectorized at all.
Question: What can I do about this? How can currying and vectorization be combined? (And: What is going wrong?)
I found a workaround (heavily inspired by Hadley's add
function) using environments instead of Curry
, but I'm looking for a cleaner solution that doesn't require this kind of clumsy "factory" functions:
getAdder <- function(amount) {
force(amount)
addAmount <- function(x) {
stopifnot(length(x) == 1)
return(x + amount)
}
return(addAmount)
}
add3 <- getAdder(3)
Vectorize(add3)(x = 7:9)
[1] 10 11 12
Tested with R 3.4.1 and the functional
package (version 0.6).