Primitive                package:base                R Documentation

Call a "Primitive" Internal Function

Description:

     '.Primitive' returns an entry point to a 'primitive' (internally
     implemented) function.

Usage:

     .Primitive(name)

Arguments:

    name: name of the R function.

Details:

     The advantage of '.Primitive' over '.Internal' functions is the
     potential efficiency of argument passing.  However, this is done
     by ignoring argument names and using positional matching of
     arguments (unless arranged differently for specific primitives
     such as 'rep'), so this is discouraged for functions of more than
     one argument.

     All primitive functions are in the base name space.

See Also:

     '.Internal'.

Examples:

     mysqrt <- .Primitive("sqrt")
     c
     .Internal # this one *must* be primitive!
     get("if") # just 'if' or 'print(if)' are not syntactically ok.

