reduce applied to a list of functions

[neuwirthe]

reduce does not work in the following example.
Should reduce applied to a lust of functions work this way?

compose <- function(f,g){
  function(x)f(g(x))
}
compose(sin,sqrt)(2)
reduce(list(sin,sqrt),compose,.dir="backward")(2)
reduce(list(sin,sqrt),compose,.dir="forward")(2)
reduce(list(sin,sqrt),compose,.dir="forward") %>% class()
reduce(list(sin,sqrt),compose,.dir="backward") %>% class()

[batpigandme]

When I try to run this, I'm getting the following error after trying to run the first reduce().

#> Error: C stack usage  7969232 is too close to the limit

Could you please turn this into a self-contained reprex (short for minimal reproducible example)? It will help us help you if we can be sure we're all working with/looking at the same stuff.

If you've never heard of a reprex before, you might want to start by reading the tidyverse.org help page.

You can install reprex by running (you may already have it, though, if you have the tidyverse package installed):

install.packages("reprex")

Thanks

[neuwirthe]

The error message you get is exactly why I wrote the post.
So, you have reproduced the error yourself ;-)

[batpigandme]

OK. For future reference, it's helpful to know what error you're encountering for triaging/figuring out issues. reprex (which shows input and output code) doesn't work in this case anyhow, because of the C stack error, but including the error that you are getting in the issue makes things just a little bit easier to get sorted!

[moodymudskipper]

If you use purr::compose it will work just fine.

I don't fully understand the mechanism but you can fix your function by forcing the evaluation of f in compose.

compose <- function(f,g){
  force(f)
  function(x){
    f(g(x))
  }
}
reduce(list(sin,sqrt),compose)(2)
# [1] 0.9877659

Still I guess it can be considered a purrr issue because it works fine with your former function if using base::Reduce :

compose <- function(f,g){
  function(x){
    f(g(x))
  }
}

Reduce(compose, list(sin,sqrt))(2)
# [1] 0.9877659

[egnha]

@neuwirthe, reduce() isn't required to compose a list of functions. (In fact, doing so adds some overhead to the resulting composition.) It is more idiomatic to use unquote-splicing to compose a list of functions, e.g.

fns <- list(sin, cos)
compose(!!! fns)