R pass-by-value or pass-by-reference

Question

if i create a function in R, for example:

f<-function(x){
x
.....

}

when execute function R use pass-by-value or pass-by-reference

https://campus.datacamp.com/courses/intermediate-r/chapter-3-functions?ex=13 — thelatemail, Dec 06 '18 at 01:10
neither. It's "copy-on-modify", i.e. it generates a new value if necessary. — Ben Bolker, Dec 06 '18 at 01:11
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15759117/what-exactly-is-copy-on-modify-semantics-in-r-and-where-is-the-canonical-source — Ben Bolker, Dec 06 '18 at 01:12

score -1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 06 '18 at 01:43

In R it is call by value. To prove this i tried with a small function as below;

f1 <- function(a,b){

  print(a)

  #print b value before call
  print(b)

  fi(b)
  #print b value after call
  print(b)

}

fi <- function(i){
   i = i + 20
}

f1(10,20)

output :
----------
[1] 10
[1] 20
[1] 20

R pass-by-value or pass-by-reference

1 Answers1