deparse                 package:base                 R Documentation

Expression Deparsing

Description:

     Turn unevaluated expressions into character strings.

Usage:

     deparse(expr, width.cutoff = 60)

Arguments:

    expr: any R expression.

width.cutoff: integer in [20, 500] determining the cutoff at which
          line-breaking is tried.

Details:

     This function turns unevaluated expressions (where ``expression''
     is taken in a wider sense than the strict concept of a vector of
     mode `"expression"' used in `expression') into character strings
     (a kind of inverse `parse').

     A typical use of this is to create informative labels for data
     sets and plots.  The example shows a simple use of this facility. 
     It uses the functions `deparse' and `substitute' to create labels
     for a plot which are character string versions of the actual
     arguments to the function `myplot'.

See Also:

     `substitute', `parse', `expression'.

Examples:

     deparse(args(lm))
     deparse(args(lm), width = 100)
     myplot <-
     function(x, y)
         plot(x, y, xlab=deparse(substitute(x)),
             ylab=deparse(substitute(y)))

