The function 'getAnywhere' crashes if given a non-existent name containing a period:
getAnywhere( 'nomethod.noclassforme')
Error in get(x, envir, mode, inherits) : variable "nomethod" was not found However, 'getAnywhere' behaves gracefully if the non-existent name lacks a period:
getAnywhere( 'nomethod')
no object named `nomethod' was found the latter being an object of class 'getAnywhere'. The cause is actually in getS3method which isn't respecting the 'optional=TRUE' argument when it can't find any function to match its first argument. Whether this is strictly a bug in getS3method, I'm not sure-- but the side-effect in getAnywhere seems undesirable. Mark --please do not edit the information below-- Version: platform = i386-pc-mingw32 arch = i386 os = mingw32 system = i386, mingw32 status = major = 1 minor = 7.1 year = 2003 month = 06 day = 16 language = R Windows 2000 Professional (build 2195) Service Pack 3.0 Search Path: .GlobalEnv, package:methods, package:ctest, package:mva, package:modreg, package:nls, package:ts, package:handy, package:debug, mvb.session.info, package:mvbutils, package:tcltk, Autoloads, package:base ******************************* Mark Bravington CSIRO (CMIS) PO Box 1538 Castray Esplanade Hobart TAS 7001 phone (61) 3 6232 5118 fax (61) 3 6232 5012 Mark.Bravington@csiro.au