Overloading methods in R
-----Original Message----- From: r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch [mailto:r-devel-bounces@stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Jeff Gentry Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 9:22 PM To: Ali - Cc: r-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: RE: [Rd] Overloading methods in R On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Ali - wrote:
I guess the context says you cannot have something like this in S4:
setGeneric("testFun", function(...)
+ standardGeneric("testFun"))
But what is wrong with:
setGeneric("testFun", function(object, ...))
Naming conflicts, may be the problem. You have that generic in your package,
but I might, without know about yours, and I write
setGeneric("testFun", function(x, ...))
in my package, and then a third person that we don't know of, is loading
both of our packages. Ouch! Indeed, this do happens.
I would be ok with the above, if everyone agreed to use 'object' as the
first argument - but then you have plot(x, ...) and so on. Also, how should
you treat default functions not taking any arguments, e.g. traceback()?
Until then I stick with testFun <- function(...) UseMethod("foo") whenever
possible.
Cheers
Henrik
Keeping in mind that 'object' is the actual instantiated object of the class which you wish to operate on. I guess I don't see how that aspect is a problem?
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