Hi,
It would be nice if there was a tool for checking the validity of any
object. validObject() is of course the natural candidate for this but
right now it doesn't work on S3 objects:
df <- data.frame(aa=1:4, bb=letters[4:1])
attributes(df)$row.names <- c("A", "B", "C", "A")
'df' is an invalid data frame instance:
> df
Error in data.frame(aa = c("1", "2", "3", "4"), bb = c("d", "c", "b", :
duplicate row.names: A
However:
> validObject(df)
[1] TRUE
> validObject(df, complete=TRUE)
[1] TRUE
Also, here is another (typical) situation where it would be nice to be
able to (recursively) check the validity of the object:
setClass("Collection", representation(things="list"))
mycollection <- new("Collection", things=list(object1, object2, object3))
The problem is that 'validObject(mycollection, complete=TRUE)'
will return TRUE, even if one of the 3 objects stored in 'mycollection'
is invalid. I could implement my own validity method for Collection
objects but that's not a satisfactory solution because it would always
do a deep check (validity methods don't handle the 'complete' argument).
Would it make sense to modify validObject() so that, when called with
'complete=TRUE', it recursively validates the components of a list or
environment?
Thanks,
H.
Herv? Pag?s Program in Computational Biology Division of Public Health Sciences Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 1100 Fairview Ave. N, M1-B514 P.O. Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109-1024 E-mail: hpages at fhcrc.org Phone: (206) 667-5791 Fax: (206) 667-1319