Passing lists as function arguments in R. Frequently helps reduce code repetition (e.g. if/else calls of different functions with mostly the same arguments). NOTE: always consider a closure function as FP alternative to this method of dealing with repetitive code elements.

list_as_fun_args.r

## regular case
foo <- function(a, b, c)  a + b - c ## does something
foo2 <- function(b, c)  b + c ## also some function
foo(a=1, b=2, c=5)
foo2(b=2, c=5)  ## repeating list of multiple arguments

## passing a list
arg.list <- list(b=2, c=5)
do.call(foo, c(list(a=1), arg.list))
do.call(foo2, arg.list)

## writing a closure function sometimes may be better!

## example of reasonable use of list passing
##  from https://gist.github.com/multidis/7995062
  arg.list <- list(X=vsets.list, FUN=varsubs.miscclass.eval, Xtra=Xtra, Yfac=Yfac,
                   Xtst=Xtst, Ytst=Ytst, methods.caret=methods.list)
  if (ncores>1) {
    vsets.compar <- do.call(mclapply, c(arg.list,list(mc.cores=ncores)))
  } else {
    vsets.compar <- do.call(lapply, arg.list)
  }

Very helpful! Thank you.

Hi there, great stuff! Are you aware of a purrr/tidyverse version of lists with fun args?

Thanks for the pointer - purrr looks fairly helpful.