[datatable-help] Unexpected behavior in setnames()

[Arunkumar Srinivasan]

Ricardo added a bug report here on this topic: https://r-forge.r-project.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=5008&group_id=240&atid=975
But I don't think having duplicate names is an easy-to-implement concept. For ex:

dt <- data.table(x=1:3, x=4:6, y=c(1,1,2))
dt[, print(.SD), by=y]
   x
1: 1
2: 2
   x
1: 3


.SD loses the second "x". Also, some other questions become difficult to handle. Ex:  

dt <- data.table(x=c(1,1,2,2), y=c(1,2,3,4), x=c(2,2,1,1))
dt[, list(x=x/x[1], y=y), by=x]


Which "x" should be choose for which operation?

Arun


On Friday, November 1, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Eduard Antonyan wrote:

> Having duplicate names is allowed and not that unusual in data.table framework, so there is no need to signal anything here.
>  
> A different question is whether there should be a warning here:  
>  
>   dt = data.table(a = 1, a = 2)
>   dt[, a]
>  
> and I think that'd be a pretty good FR to have.
>  
>  
> On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Alexandre Sieira <alexandre.sieira at gmail.com (mailto:alexandre.sieira at gmail.com)> wrote:
> > I found this behavior during a debugging session:  
> >  
> > > d = data.table(a=1, b=2, c=3)
> > > setnames(d, "a", "b")
> > > d
> >    b b c
> > 1: 1 2 3
> >  
> > Shouldn’t setnames() check if the new column names already exist before renaming, and signal an error or at least a warning if they do?
> > --  
> > Alexandre Sieira
> > CISA, CISSP, ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
> >  
> > "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
> > Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895, Act I
> > _______________________________________________
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