r - paste doesn't recognize object -

i'm trying run function, when try compile it, says:

error in paste("http://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=", symbol,  :    object 'symbol' not found    fund.data <- function (   symbol,       # ticker    n=10,             # number of periods   mode=c('quarterly','annual'), # periodicity   max.attempts=5    # maximum number of attempts download before exiting )   dirname(sys.frame(1)$ofile) {   all.data = c()    option.value = -1    start_date = c('istart_date,start_date')   names(start_date) = c('quarterly,annual')    repeat {     # download quarterly financial report data     if(option.value >= 0) {       url = paste('http://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=', symbol, '&btn=', mode[1], '_reports&', start_date[mode[1]], '=', option.value, sep = '')       } else {       url = paste('http://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=', symbol, '&btn=', mode[1], '_reports', sep = '')     }      cat('downloading', url, '\n')      #txt = join(readlines(url))          for(iattempt in 1:max.attempts) {        flag = t       trycatch({         txt = join(readlines(url))       }, interrupt = function(ex) {         flag <<-  f         sys.sleep(0.1)       }, error = function(ex) {         flag <<-  f         sys.sleep(0.1)       }, = {         if(flag) break       })     }      if( length(grep('indicators', txt, ignore.case = t)) == 0 ) {       cat('no data found for', symbol, '\n')       return(all.data)     }      # title     pos = regexpr(pattern = '<title>(.*?)</title>', txt, ignore.case = true, perl = true)     if(length(pos) == 1)       title = substr(txt, attr(pos, 'capture.start'), attr(pos, 'capture.start') + attr(pos, 'capture.length') - 1)       # extract table page     data = extract.table.from.webpage(txt, 'indicators', has.header = t)     colnames(data) = data[1,]     rownames(data) = data[,1]     data = data[,-1,drop=f]      # add not present data     add.index = which( is.na(match( colnames(data), colnames(all.data) )) )              all.data = cbind(data[,add.index,drop=f], all.data)      # check if time stop     if(ncol(all.data) >= n) break     if(option.value == 0)  break      # extract option value go next page     temp = gsub(pattern = '<option', replacement = '<tr>', txt, perl = true)     temp = gsub(pattern = '</option>', replacement = '</tr>', temp, perl = true)         temp = extract.table.from.webpage(temp, 'all amounts', has.header = t)      temp = apply(temp,1,join)     index.selected = grep('selected', temp)     option.value = 0     if( length(index.selected) )       option.value = as.double( gsub('.*value=\'([0-9]*).*', '\\1', temp[index.selected]) )       if(option.value > 0) {       # can 5 time periods @ time       option.value = option.value - 5       option.value = max(0, option.value)            } else {       break     }   }    # remove empty columns   all.data = all.data[, colsums(nchar(trim(all.data))) > 0, drop=f]   all.data = rbind(all.data, title)   rownames(all.data)[nrow(all.data)] = 'htmltitletext'    if( ncol(all.data) > n ) {         return(all.data[,(ncol(all.data)-n+1):ncol(all.data), drop=f])   } else {     return(all.data)   } } 

the way you've written code, dirname() call comprises entirety of body of function. braced block follows executed , not part of function.

after running code (and getting error quoted), fund.data():

fund.data; ## function ## ( ##   symbol,       # ticker ##   n=10,             # number of periods ##   mode=c('quarterly','annual'), # periodicity ##   max.attempts=5    # maximum number of attempts download before exiting ## ) ##   dirname(sys.frame(1)$ofile) 

as can see, braced block not taken part of function definition. executed after fund.data() defined. function definition takes only following expression body, although expression may comprise braced block, allows number of statements subsumed within it. , @richardscriven pointed out in comment, there no actual call function anywhere in code.

so, reason why you're getting exact error "object 'symbol' not found" because function parameter symbol not exist in braced block, because not part of body of function , executed itself.

to solve problem, need surround entire function body braced block:

fund.data <- function (     symbol,       # ticker     n=10,             # number of periods     mode=c('quarterly','annual'), # periodicity     max.attempts=5    # maximum number of attempts download before exiting ) {     dirname(sys.frame(1)$ofile)     all.data = c()     option.value = -1      ...  } 

although it's not clear purpose of dirname() call is, since return value not used.