1. UseMethod (via usemethod in objects.c) now uses the definition of class() to dispatch, with the methods package attached (dataClass(x)) and without (attr(x, "class")). Packages using a construction of the form if(is.null(class(x))) class(x) <- data.class(x) UseMethod("foo") should now get similar dispatch with the methods package attached. 2. all.equal and some of its pseudo-methods have been modified to work when those methods (all.equal.numeric, all.equal.character) are in fact dispatched. "Work" may not extend to identical character string output when the arguments don't match equal (though it does in some simple cases). But it's not a good idea to rely on that output for testing, better to use one of identical(target, current) identical(all.equal(target, current, ...), TRUE)) 3. The isas-tests have been modified to use identical() rather than all.equal for the tests that have produced voluminous output. We should eventually examine why various of these tests "fail", but at least the volume of the output is much less and the test should be more stable. John -- John M. Chambers jmc@bell-labs.com Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies office: (908)582-2681 700 Mountain Avenue, Room 2C-282 fax: (908)582-3340 Murray Hill, NJ 07974 web: http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/~jmc