What are good examples of when seq_along will work, but seq will produce unintended results?
From the documentation of ?seq we
This should make the difference clear. Basically, seq() acts like seq_along() except when passed a vector of length 1, in which case it acts like seq_len(). If this ever once bites you, you'll never use seq() again!
a <- c(8, 9, 10)
b <- c(9, 10)
c <- 10
seq_along(a)
# [1] 1 2 3
seq_along(b)
# [1] 1 2
seq_along(c)
# [1] 1
seq(a)
# [1] 1 2 3
seq(b)
# [1] 1 2
seq(c)
# [1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
It's probably worth noting that sample() exhibits similarly crummy behavior:
sample(a)
# [1] 10 8 9
sample(b)
# [1] 9 10
sample(c)
# [1] 8 7 9 3 4 1 6 10 2 5