almost.equal: Vectorized testing for near-equality

In berryFunctions: Function Collection Related to Plotting and Hydrology

Vectorized testing for near-equality

Description

Vectorized testing for near-equality with all.equal. Since elements are recycled, this will not work for environments. You can use almost.equal directly in if expressions.

Usage

almost.equal(x, y, scale = 1, ...)

Arguments

x, y	R objects to be compared with each other, recycled to max length
scale	DEFAULT scale=1 for absolute comparison for numbers. use scale=NULL for relative comparison (all.equal default).
...	Further arguments passed to all.equal

Value

Logical vector

Author(s)

Berry Boessenkool, [e-mail], Jan 2017

See Also

all.equal

Examples

# General usage:
x <- c(0.4-0.1, 0.5-0.2)
x
x==0.3                    # FALSE TRUE # but mathematically, x is 0.3
all.equal(x, rep(0.3,2))  # TRUE
almost.equal(x,0.3)       # TRUE TRUE  # nice

y <- c(7777, 0.3)
   all.equal(x,y) # "Mean relative difference: 25922.33"   Not what I want
almost.equal(x,y) # FALSE TRUE                             Exactly what I want


# Absolute vs relative comparison, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57578257

   all.equal(6.2, 6.4, tolerance=0.04) # TRUE - unexpected!
almost.equal(6.2, 6.4, tolerance=0.04) # FALSE, thanks to default scale=1
almost.equal(6.2, 6.4, tolerance=0.04, scale=NULL) # as with all.equal


# Testing vectorization
almost.equal(1:6, 3)
almost.equal(1:6, NA)
almost.equal(1:6, NULL)


# Testing the function for different data types (in order of coercion):
almost.equal(c(TRUE,FALSE,NA), c(TRUE,FALSE,NA))      # logical
almost.equal(as.factor(letters), as.factor(letters))  # factor
   all.equal(1:6, 1:6)
almost.equal(1:6, 1:6)                                # integer  numeric see above
0.4+0.4i - 0.1-0.1i == 0.3+0.3i
almost.equal(0.4+0.4i - 0.1-0.1i, 0.3+0.3i)           # complex
   all.equal(letters, tolower(LETTERS))
almost.equal(letters, tolower(LETTERS))               # character
almost.equal(Sys.Date()+1:4,Sys.Date()+1:4)           # Date
x <- Sys.time()+0:2
all.equal(x,x)
almost.equal(x,x)                                     # POSIXt
A <- list(a=1:5, b=0.5-0.2)
B <- list(a=1:5, b=0.4-0.1)
   all.equal(A,B)
almost.equal(A,B)                                     # list

berryFunctions documentation built on Aug. 8, 2025, 6:18 p.m.