R help - Mar 2005 - how to view the syntax of a method which is not a generic method

Hello - I'm trying to modify an option for the lme() or nlme() macros.  
I want to write my own specification for the variance function and am 
following homework problem 4, Chapter 5, page 268 of Pinheiro and Bates 
book on mixed effect.

I'm up to point where I've created a new class using an existing 
variance function class, varExp as a template.  Next I need to write an 
initialize method.  The book suggests that I use the inialize method for 
one of the exisiting variance functions for lme(), eg varExp.
What I want is the syntax of the initialize.varExp method so that I can 
edit it to create an initialize method for my newly constructed class.

So - I tried to get the text of this method, called initialize.varExp by 
using the showMethods command.

Here's what happened.

 > showMethods("initialize.varExp")

Function "initialize.varExp":
<not a generic function>

So I assume that inialize.varExp is not a generic method.   I also have 
the following information.

 > findFunction("initialize.varExp")
list()

and

 > findFunction("varExp")
[[1]]
<environment: package:nlme>
attr(,"name")
[1] "package:nlme"
attr(,"path")
[1] "C:/PROGRA~1/R/rw1091/library/nlme"

So I'm guessing I somehow need to tell the showMethods command that 
initialize.varExp is part of the nlme package.  And now I'm stuck - any 
suggestions?

Thanks so much - Sarah Holte

Hi Sarah,

Sarah Holte <Sholte at fhcrc.org> writes:
> The book suggests that I use the inialize method for one of the
> exisiting variance functions for lme(), eg varExp.  What I want is
> the syntax of the initialize.varExp method so that I can edit it to
> create an initialize method for my newly constructed class.
You might want to download the source package for nlme.  You can get
it here:

http://cran.fhcrc.org/src/contrib/nlme_3.1-56.tar.gz

I think the function you are looking for is defined in varFunc.R and
it looks like it is Initialize.varExp (initial cap) so you might retry
your search techniques with that name.

Hope that helps,

+ seth