Re: [O] was this intentional with the default header ":results value"

[Thomas S. Dye]

Aloha Eric,

Eric Luo <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi, 
> Why in the following code block, c1 was printed as scientific notation
> rather then characters.
> ,----
> | 
> | #+BEGIN_SRC R :results value
> |   df <- data.frame(c1="123456789123456789",c2=2)
> | #+END_SRC
> | 
> | #+RESULTS:
> | | 1.2345678912345678e+17 | 2 |
> `----

With :results value the results are passed from the source language into
emacs-lisp and then displayed in the buffer.  So, the representation of
things like very large numbers depends on how that was done in
emacs-lisp, independent of the source language conventions.  In this
case, I suspect the number was written with a formatting string and ‘%g’
which uses scientific notation if that is a shorter representation.


> But if the header :results output, the result was expected.
> ,----
> | 
> | #+BEGIN_SRC R :results output 
> |   df <- data.frame(c1="123456789123456789",c2=2)
> |   df
> | #+END_SRC
> | 
> | #+RESULTS:
> | :                   c1 c2
> | : 1 123456789123456789  2
> `----
>

With :results output the results aren't translated into emacs-lisp.
Instead, the output from the source language is collected and displayed
in the buffer.  Thus, the output conventions of the source language are
respected. 

hth,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
http://www.tsdye.com