Thomas Lumley answers this in a superb post on r-help the other day. <<-
is about the enclosing environment so you can do thing like this (and again, I quote his post from April 22 in this thread):
make.accumulator<-function(){
a <- 0
function(x) {
a <<- a + x
a
}
}
> f<-make.accumulator()
> f(1)
[1] 1
> f(1)
[1] 2
> f(11)
[1] 13
> f(11)
[1] 24
This is a legitimate use of <<-
as “super-assignment” with lexical scope. And not simply to assign in the global environment. For that, Thomas has these choice words:
The Evil and Wrong use is to modify
variables in the global environment.
Very good advice.