Passing a string as function argument

Question

I would like to use a string as argument of a function in order to use this string for the plotting of the result, but R plots the argument variable name instead of its string value. I tried different solutions (diparse, as.character...) but still no solution. Do you have any idea?

mcnemar_test <- function (c1,c2,class1, class2)
{
    name1=label(class1)
    name2=deparse(substitute(class2))

    v1 = c1$encerts
    v2 = c2$encerts

    e00 = sum(ifelse(v1+v2==0,1,0)) #bad classification for both
    e01 = sum(ifelse(v1<v2,1,0)) #bad classification for 1
    e10 = sum(ifelse(v1>v2,1,0)) #bad classification for 2
    e11 = sum(ifelse(v1+v2==2,1,0)) #good classification for both

    matriu <- matrix(c(e00,e01,e10,e11),nrow = 2, 
        dimnames = list(name1 = c("Disapprove", "Approve"),
                       name2 = c("Disapprove", "Approve")))
    print (matriu)
    t <- mcnemar.test(matriu)
    return (t)
}
mcnemar_test(classifiers.NaiveBayes,classifiers.CART,"aa","bb")

I would like to see "aa" and "bb" but see "name1 and name2

Have you tried eval? Lots of Q&A here on this kind of thing — Ben
– Ben, Commented Jun 1, 2013 at 16:24
@Ben eval is just one letter away from R inferno; best avoided when not really needed — baptiste
– baptiste, Commented Jun 1, 2013 at 18:28
Quite right, there are less obscure methods, it is slow, indicative of a lack of knowledge and there are many alternatives, such as get, and [[. What is the one letter away that you're referring to (I'm not that familiar with that text...) — Ben
– Ben, Commented Jun 1, 2013 at 22:34

Peyton · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-01 16:52:40Z

2

R thinks you want the names to be "name1" and "name2", just like if I were to create a list with names "a" and "b":

my.list <- list(a=1, b=2)

Try using structure and passing the names as a character vector:

matriu <- matrix(c(e00,e01,e10,e11),nrow = 2, 
                 dimnames = structure(list(c("Disapprove", "Approve"),
                                           c("Disapprove", "Approve")),
                                      names=c(class1, class2)))

Or setting the names of the elements after you create the list:

matriu <- matrix(c(e00,e01,e10,e11),nrow = 2, 
                 dimnames = list(c("Disapprove", "Approve"),
                                 c("Disapprove", "Approve")))
names(dimnames(matriu)) <- c(class1, class2)

edited Jun 1, 2013 at 16:52

answered Jun 1, 2013 at 16:26

Peyton

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IRTFM · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-03 16:00:23Z

-1

Edit: Within your function code drop the label(.) and deparse(substitute(.)) attempts and use this:

dimnames = setNames( list(  c("Disapprove", "Approve"),  
                            c("Disapprove", "Approve")), 
                     c(class1, class2) )

edited Jun 3, 2013 at 16:00

answered Jun 2, 2013 at 1:12

IRTFM

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