Good ways to define functions inside function in R

Question

In R, when want to use one/multiple functions inside another function, maybe there are two ways. An example function can be:

Method 1:

m         


        

Answer 1

If you are asking about the specific example you gave, this question does not seem too broad to me.

The main difference here is the evaluation of n. For example 1, the function that gets returned will essentially have a hard-coded n value.

> n = 100
> f1 = make.power(2)
> f1(2)
[1] 4
> n = 1
> f1(2)
[1] 4

Example 2 will not, instead it will rely on the global definition of n.

> n = 1
> make.power2(2)
[1] 2
> n = 100
> make.power2(2)
[1] 1.267651e+30

As functions get more complex, so will the scoping issues. The link David Robinson provides in the comments is a great resource.