Reference Classes copy(shallow=FALSE) unexpected behavior.

Dear Hadley,

Thank you very much for your interest in the question proposed.
The Con class is a Reference Class. P and k are from class listCon.

I provide in the following lines a little more detail in order to be able
to reproduce the case.

#Class declaration
gCon <- setRefClass("Con", fields=list(from="ANY",weight="numeric"))
gListAMORE <- setRefClass("listAMORE", fields=list(.Data="list"))
gListCon <- setRefClass("listCon", contains="listAMORE")

# Let's create a few connections
con1 <- gCon$new(from=1, weight=1.1)
con2 <- gCon$new(from=2, weight=2.2)
con3 <- gCon$new(from=3, weight=3.3)

# And a list of connections
lcon <-gListCon$new()
lcon$.Data <- list(con1, con2, con3)

# At this point, lcon contains:
lcon$.Data
[[1]]
An object of class "Con"
<environment: 0x9a1534>

[[2]]
An object of class "Con"
<environment: 0xcd7ff0>

[[3]]
An object of class "Con"
<environment: 0xdca724>

# Let's copy lcon to k
k <- lcon$copy(shallow=FALSE)

# Now k is a new object but the cons are shared with lcon!
k$.Data
[[1]]
An object of class "Con"
<environment: 0x9a1534>

[[2]]
An object of class "Con"
<environment: 0xcd7ff0>

[[3]]
An object of class "Con"
<environment: 0xdca724>


Best regards

Manuel



El 11/05/11 14:00, "Hadley Wickham" <hadley at rice.edu> escribi?:

2011/5/10 Manuel Castej?n Limas <manuel.castejon at unileon.es>:

Dear all,

I've just discovered the 'Reference Classes'.
In a previous attempt ---a year ago--- to re-implement in a Object
Oriented
fashion the AMORE package using S4 classes I strongly felt the need of
such
capability. It's great to have the Reference Classes now available.
Along
with the discovery of the Rcpp package, this new programming paradigm
has
boosted my interest in rewriting that package.

Nevertheless, I have found a surprising behavior in the
$copy(shallow=FALSE)
method. Let's have a look at the results which I believe are
self-explanatories. The ".Data" field is a list which contains objects
from
the "Con" class  ---connections for what is worth---.

What sort of class is the Con class? S4 or reference?

Hadley


-- 
Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair
Department of Statistics / Rice University
http://had.co.nz/