R type conversion expression() function()

Question

I've been trying to write a program in R that implements Newton's method. I've been mostly successful, but there are two little snags that have been bothering me. Here's my code:

Newton<-function(f,f.,guess){
    #f <- readline(prompt="Function? ")
    #f. <- readline(prompt="Derivative? ")
    #guess <- as.numeric(readline(prompt="Guess? "))
    a <- rep(NA, length=1000)
    a[1] <- guess
    a[2] <- a[1] - f(a[1]) / f.(a[1])
    for(i in 2:length(a)){
        if(a[i] == a[i-1]){
           break
        } 
        else{
           a[i+1] <- a[i] - f(a[i]) / f.(a[i])
        }
    }   
    a <- a[complete.cases(a)]
    return(a)
}

1. I can't get R to recognize the functions f and f. if I try using readline() to prompt for user input. I get the error "Error in Newton() : could not find function "f."" However, if I comment out the readlines (as above), define f and f. beforehand, then everything works fine.

2. I've been trying to make R calculate the derivative of a function. The problem is that the class object with which R can take symbolic derivatives is expression(), but I want to take the derivative of a function() and have it give me a function(). In short, I'm having trouble with type conversion between expression() and function().

I have an ugly but effective solution for going from function() to expression(). Given a function f, D(body(f)[[2]],"x") will give the derivative of f. However, this output is an expression(), and I haven't been able to turn it back into a function(). Do I need to use eval() or something? I've tried subsetting, but to no avail. For instance:

g <- expression(sin(x))
g[[1]]
sin(x)
f <- function(x){g[[1]]}
f(0)
sin(x)

when what I want is f(0) = 0 since sin(0) = 0.

EDIT: Thanks all! Here's my new code:

Newton<-function(f,f.,guess){
    g<-readline(prompt="Function? ")
    g<-parse(text=g)
    g.<-D(g,"x")
    f<-function(x){eval(g[[1]])}
    f.<-function(x){eval(g.)}
    guess<-as.numeric(readline(prompt="Guess? "))
    a<-rep(NA, length=1000)
    a[1]<-guess
    a[2]<-a[1]-f(a[1])/f.(a[1])
    for(i in 2:length(a)){
        if(a[i]==a[i-1]){break
        }else{
        a[i+1]<-a[i]-f(a[i])/f.(a[i])
        }
    }   
a<-a[complete.cases(a)]
#a<-a[1:(length(a)-1)]
return(a)
}

Answer 1

1. This first problem arises because readline reads in a text string, whereas what you need is an expression. You can use parse() to convert the text string to an expression:

   f <-readline(prompt="Function? ")
   sin(x)
   f
   # [1] "sin(x)"
   
   f <- parse(text = f)
   f
   # expression(sin(x))
   
   g <- D(f, "x")
   g
   # cos(x)
   

2. To pass in values for the arguments in the function call in the expression (whew!), you can eval() it in an environment containing the supplied values. Nicely, R will allow you to supply those values in a list supplied to the envir= argument of eval():

   > eval(f, envir=list(x=0))
   # [1] 0
   

Answer 2

Josh has answered your question

For part 2 you could have used

g <- expression( sin(x) )

g[[1]]
# sin(x)

f <- function(x){ eval( g[[1]] ) }

f(0)
# [1] 0
f(pi/6)
# [1] 0.5