Hi the list, I define a method that want to change an object without assignation (foo(x) and not x<-foo(x)) using deparse and assign. But when the argument of the method does not match *exactly* with the definition of the generic function, assign does not work... Anything wrong? Christophe #------ Does not work ------# setGeneric("foo1",function(x,...){standardGeneric("foo1")}) setMethod(f="foo1",signature="numeric",definition function(x,y=1,...){ nameX<-deparse(substitute(x)) x <- x^2 assign(nameX,x,envir=parent.frame()) } ) e <- 3 foo1(e,y=5) cat(e) #------ Does work ------# setGeneric("foo2",function(x,...){standardGeneric("foo2")}) setMethod(f="foo2",signature="numeric",definition function(x,...){ nameX<-deparse(substitute(x)) x <- x^2 assign(nameX,x,envir=parent.frame()) } ) e <- 3 foo2(e,y=5) cat(e)
Dear Christophe type showMethods("foo1", inc=TRUE) showMethods("foo2", inc=TRUE) to see the difference between the two functions, and this will explain their different behaviour. This feature of S4 has been discussed here many times before, see e.g.: http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/e4/help/08/01/1676.html Perhaps juggling with the 'n' argument of 'parent.frame' could help in hacking something together that 'works', but as far as I can see what you want to is an abuse of R's pass by value / functional language semantics. For example, try these and check whether this results in what you intended: foo2(3) foo2(e+2) sapply(1:5, foo2) ls() Best wishes Wolfgang Christophe Genolini scripsit 15/03/10 11:33:> Hi the list, > I define a method that want to change an object without assignation > (foo(x) and not x<-foo(x)) using deparse and assign. > But when the argument of the method does not match *exactly* with the > definition of the generic function, assign does not work... > Anything wrong? > > Christophe > > #------ Does not work ------# > setGeneric("foo1",function(x,...){standardGeneric("foo1")}) > > setMethod(f="foo1",signature="numeric",definition> function(x,y=1,...){ > nameX<-deparse(substitute(x)) > x <- x^2 > assign(nameX,x,envir=parent.frame()) > } > ) > > e <- 3 > foo1(e,y=5) > cat(e) > > > #------ Does work ------# > setGeneric("foo2",function(x,...){standardGeneric("foo2")}) > > setMethod(f="foo2",signature="numeric",definition> function(x,...){ > nameX<-deparse(substitute(x)) > x <- x^2 > assign(nameX,x,envir=parent.frame()) > } > ) > > e <- 3 > foo2(e,y=5) > cat(e) > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel-- Wolfgang Huber EMBL http://www.embl.de/research/units/genome_biology/huber/contact
Where did you get the idea that 'x' comes from the parent frame? There is no guarantee of this, and you are relying on/stumbling over implementation details here. (An extra call is inserted by setMethod() to handle the matching up of argumnets, but that is something which may change, and has changed in the history of the 'methods' package.) Note that 'x' might be an expression, even foo2(3, y=5). You need to check it is a symbol. It would seem to me to be much better to use a replacement function here (via setReplaceMethod in S4 land) and let the parser do most of the basic checking. Incidentally, at least in modern English, an assignation is (Collins English Dictionary) a secret or forbidden arrangement to meet and it seems rather that you _are_ trying to do something 'secret or forbidden'. (I suspect you mean 'assignment'.) On Mon, 15 Mar 2010, Christophe Genolini wrote:> Hi the list, > I define a method that want to change an object without assignation (foo(x) > and not x<-foo(x)) using deparse and assign. > But when the argument of the method does not match *exactly* with the > definition of the generic function, assign does not work... > Anything wrong? > > Christophe > > #------ Does not work ------# > setGeneric("foo1",function(x,...){standardGeneric("foo1")}) > > setMethod(f="foo1",signature="numeric",definition> function(x,y=1,...){ > nameX<-deparse(substitute(x)) > x <- x^2 > assign(nameX,x,envir=parent.frame()) > } > ) > > e <- 3 > foo1(e,y=5) > cat(e) > > > #------ Does work ------# > setGeneric("foo2",function(x,...){standardGeneric("foo2")}) > > setMethod(f="foo2",signature="numeric",definition> function(x,...){ > nameX<-deparse(substitute(x)) > x <- x^2 > assign(nameX,x,envir=parent.frame()) > } > ) > > e <- 3 > foo2(e,y=5) > cat(e) > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel >-- Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595