Cardboard recycling arguments

Question

I wrote a function that converts a number in base 10 to another base (I'm only interested in base 2 - 9). My current functions for converting base 10 to base 2 are as follows:

cb2 <- function(num){
    td<-{}
    a <- {}
    while (num 2 > 0 ){
        a <- num %% 2
        td <- paste(td,a, sep="")
        num <- as.integer(num / 2)              
    }   
    return(td)  
} 

And the use will be:

sapply(1:10, cb2)

I would like to generalize this function and include the preferred base as arguments to the function, ala ...

convertbase <- function(num, base){
    td<-{}
    a <- {}
    while (num / base > 0 ){
        a <- num %% base
        td <- paste(td,a, sep="")
        num <- as.integer(num / base)               
    }   
    return(td)  
}

If I'm only interested in one number converted to base 2-10, all is well:

mapply(convertbase, 10, 2:10)

However, if I want the numbers 1:10 for the base 2:10, I have problems:

mapply(convertbase, 1:10, 2:10)
Warning message:
In mapply(convertbase, 1:10, 2:10) :
  longer argument not a multiple of length of shorter

Ideally, this function or set of functions will return a data frame with separate columns for base 2-10, but I understand that there is a goal between the code that I have. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

mapply , , . :

outer(1:10,2:9,Vectorize(convertbase))