## my abbreviation of head() h <- function(x, n=10) head(x, n) ## and summary() ss <- summaryOr problems that I'd rather figure out once, and only once:
## example: ## between( 1:10, 5.5, 6.5 ) between <- function(x, low, high, ineq=F) { ## like SQL between, return logical index if (ineq) { x >= low & x <= high } else { x > low & x < high } }One of these "problems" that's been rattling around in my head is the fact that setdiff(x, y) is asymmetric, and has no options to modify this. With some regularity, I want to know if two sets are equal, and if not, what are the differing elements. setequal(x, y) gives me a boolean answer to the first question. It would *seem* that setdiff(x, y) would identify those elements. However, I find the following result rather counter-intuitive:
> setdiff(1:5, 1:6) integer(0)I personally dislike having to type both setdiff(x,y) and setdiff(y,x) to identify the differing elements, as well as remember which is the reference set (here, the second argument, which I find personally counterintuitive). With this in mind, here's a snappy little function that returns the symmetric set difference:
symdiff <- function( x, y) { setdiff( union(x, y), intersect(x, y))} > symdiff(1:5, 1:6) == symdiff(1:6, 1:5) [1] TRUE
Tada! A new function for my .Rprofile!
This is exactly what I was about to try and do. Thanks very much
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