I'd like to check if some variable is defined in R - without getting an error. How can I do this?
My attempts (not successful):
> is.na(ooxx)
Error: object 'ooxx' not found
> is.finite(ooxx)
Error: object 'ooxx' not found
Thanks!
转载于:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9368900/how-to-check-if-object-variable-is-defined-in-r
You want exists()
:
R> exists("somethingUnknown")
[1] FALSE
R> somethingUnknown <- 42
R> exists("somethingUnknown")
[1] TRUE
R>
See ?exists
, for some definition of "...is defined". E.g.
> exists("foo")
[1] FALSE
> foo <- 1:10
> exists("foo")
[1] TRUE
if you are inside a function, missing() is what you want.
exchequer = function(x) {
if(missing(x)){
message("x is missing… :-(")
}
}
exchequer()
x is missing… :-(
As others have pointed out, you're looking for exists
. Keep in mind that using exists
with names used by R's base packages would return true regardless of whether you defined the variable:
> exists("data")
[1] TRUE
To get around this (as pointed out by Bazz; see ?exists
), use the inherits
argument:
> exists("data", inherits = FALSE)
[1] FALSE
foo <- TRUE
> exists("foo", inherits = FALSE)
[1] TRUE
Of course, if you wanted to search the name spaces of attached packages, this would also fall short:
> exists("data.table")
[1] FALSE
require(data.table)
> exists("data.table", inherits = FALSE)
[1] FALSE
> exists("data.table")
[1] TRUE
The only thing I can think of to get around this -- to search in attached packages but not in base packages -- is the following:
any(sapply(1:(which(search() == "tools:rstudio") - 1L),
function(pp) exists(_object_name_, where = pp, inherits = FALSE)))
Compare replacing _object_name_
with "data.table"
(TRUE
) vs. "var"
(FALSE
)
(of course, if you're not on RStudio, I think the first automatically attached environment is "package:stats"
)
If you don't want to use quotes, you can use deparse(substitute()) trick which I found in example section of ?substitute:
is.defined <- function(sym) {
sym <- deparse(substitute(sym))
env <- parent.frame()
exists(sym, env)
}
is.defined(a)
# FALSE
a <- 10
is.defined(a)
# TRUE