Difference between paste and print (affecting result of function)

Question

To start off, I\'m not really sure what the difference between paste and print is. But I am using \"print\" to spit out generic statements and \"paste\" to spit out statemen

Answer 1

paste returns the input concatenated together. When a function returns it calls print on whatever was returned if it isn't stored into a variable. Functions return the last top level call if there is no explicit 'return' or 'invisible' statement.

All of these things add up to what you end up seeing. If paste is the last function called it ends up returning the input concatenated together - which ends up being returned by the function - which ends up being printed since you don't save it into a variable. If you explicitly want something printed it is best to use print or message or cat - they each serve slightly different purposes.