Re: [babel] R questions

From: "Sébastien Vauban" <wxhgmqzgwmuf-geNee64TY+gS+FvcfC7Uqw@public.gmane.org>
To: emacs-orgmode-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org
Subject: Re: [babel] R questions
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:04:40 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87zl5so6vr.fsf@mundaneum.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 526E5F77-3D17-436E-AB7C-EC79F084B559@tsdye.com

Hi Thomas,

"Thomas S. Dye" wrote:
> On Dec 8, 2009, at 11:37 AM, Sébastien Vauban wrote:
>> "Thomas S. Dye" wrote:
>>> On Dec 7, 2009, at 11:50 PM, Sébastien Vauban wrote:
>>>
>>>>> [2] I guess one could potentially think about dealing with missing values
>>>>>    more explicitly in org-babel. E.g. there could be a header arg
>>>>>    specifying what values are to be treatyed as missing. Nothing like
>>>>>    that exists currently.
>>>>
>>>> I guess such a feature would be required on the long term. Of course,
>>>> even specifying what would be the needed behavior is already difficult, I
>>>> think.
>>>> One must have good knowledge of the multiple languages and environments,
>>>> and try to abstract the best behavior out of these.
>>>>
>>>> But what's a "NA" value in general? Is 0 always a meaningful value as
>>>> numeric? Context-sensitive..
>>>
>>> [...] but if I read this thread correctly and you are trying to workaround
>>> a data input problem with R in Org-babel,
>>
>> No, you misread, or I mis-wrote ;-)
>>
>> I wasn't speaking of R only, saying that "such a feature would be required
>> on the long term [... for] the multiple languages".
>>
>> Thinking at shell-script (with empty strings), SQL code (with empty strings
>> and NULL values), etc.
>>
>> Implementing a fixed interpretation is NOT a good idea. I share your point
>> of view.
>>
>> My comments were:
>>
>> - I think we must be able to write a rule for interpreting "empty"
>>   (whatever it means) values;
>>
>> - We should think at what's needed to cover the current and future needs,
>>   not focusing on one specific language (R), but thinking at all of them
>>   (shell commands, SQL, etc.).
>
> I agree with you on the importance of having some way to represent missing
> values in Org-babel that can be translated cleanly and transparently to the
> representations used by specific languages.

We're on the same wavelength for such a need. Remains to specify what we would
want, in order to be simple and generic enough...

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sébastien Vauban

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