Drop "distribution" in print() output?

[zeileis]

Alex @alexpghayes, when printing distribution objects, the output takes up quite a bit of space (especially for vectors of distributions). Even for a 1-parameter distribution like this:

p <- Poisson(log(2:6))
p
## [1] "Poisson distribution (lambda = 0.6931)"
## [2] "Poisson distribution (lambda = 1.0986)"
## [3] "Poisson distribution (lambda = 1.3863)"
## [4] "Poisson distribution (lambda = 1.6094)"
## [5] "Poisson distribution (lambda = 1.7918)"

This could be alleviated if we omitted the distribution in the output like this:

p
## [1] "Poisson(lambda = 0.6931)" "Poisson(lambda = 1.0986)"
## [3] "Poisson(lambda = 1.3863)" "Poisson(lambda = 1.6094)"
## [5] "Poisson(lambda = 1.7918)"

My feeling is that this easier to read and also closer to the notation used in many textbooks. It's also closer to how we create the objects in distributions3, e.g., we might do:

X = Poisson(lambda = 1.3)
X
## [1] "Poisson(lambda = 1.3)"

Would you consider simplifying the print() output like this? If so, I'm happy to make the change myself, but I wanted to discuss it first before proposing a PR. In any case, the code change is quite minimal, essentially just here: https://github.com/alexpghayes/distributions3/blob/main/R/utils.R#L288

[alexpghayes]

Sounds good to me! I don't have the capacity to make this change myself but I fully support it.

[zeileis]

OK, great. This just needs two mini changes in the format() methods (plus updating the tests accordingly). It's in the devel branch now: https://github.com/alexpghayes/distributions3/pull/100/commits/625801897214a67d89672a6e40f943dec84d8f17

[zeileis]

Now merged into main.