Lana. Couple things. 1. Perhaps you want to be using the 'subset' argument, not the 'select' argument in the subset command, according to the help on the subset command: --------- Arguments: x: object to be subsetted. subset: logical expression indicating elements or rows to keep: missing values are taken as false. select: expression, indicating columns to select from a data frame. drop: passed on to '[' indexing operator. --------- Replace: lapply(LI, subset, select=cov[[i]]) with: lapply(LI, FUN=subset, subset=cov[[i]]) but .... 2. The object LI, which you are calling lapply on, is never defined in your example below, so I could be misleading you. Perhaps you could give more details. Mark On 04/07/2008, at 9:02 AM, Lana Schaffer wrote: > Hi, > I am using this subset statement and it works outside a function. > LIS[[i]]<- lapply(LI, subset, select=cov[[i]]) However, wrapped > inside a > function this statement produces the same values for every (which is > always LIS[[1]]) which is only the first subset of LI. > Does anyone know why is not working correctly inside a function? > > ff = factor(covariate) > nLev <- nlevels(ff) > cov <- vector(mode="list",length=nLev) > for (gp in 1:nLev) { > cov[[gp]] <- covariate == levels(ff)[gp] } > > LIS <- vector(mode="list",length=nLev) > #if (SINGLE == T ) LIS[[1]] <- LI else {} for (i in 1:nLev) > LIS[[i]]<- lapply(LI, subset, select=cov[[i]]) > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Lana Schaffer > Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 3:44 PM > To: 'bioconductor at stat.math.ethz.ch' > Subject: the function subset inside a function > > Hi, > I have successfully applied the subset function on a list. However, > inside a function the subset did not work. Has anyone else run into > this problem? > > Lana Schaffer > Biostatistics/Informatics > The Scripps Research Institute > DNA Array Core Facility > La Jolla, CA 92037 > (858) 784-2263 > (858) 784-2994 > schaffer at scripps.edu > > _______________________________________________ > Bioconductor mailing list > Bioconductor at stat.math.ethz.ch > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioconductor > Search the archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.biology.informatics.conductor ------------------------------ Mark Robinson Epigenetics Laboratory, Garvan Bioinformatics Division, WEHI e: m.robinson at garvan.org.au e: mrobinson at wehi.edu.au p: 03 9345 2628 f: 03 9347 0852