R devel - Aug 2011 - initFields() method no longer coerces arguments in R-devel

Dear all,

I've just had a package update bounced from CRAN because of a recent
change in R-devel which seems to affect the behaviour of the
initFields() reference class method. (The change must be very recent
because I tested the package on a week-old build of R-devel.) It seems
that the method no longer coerces its arguments to the expected type
of each field. For a simple example:
> Foo <- setRefClass("Foo",
fields=list(number="integer"), methods=list(initialize=function
(number = NULL) initFields(number=number)))
> Foo$new()
Error in function (value)  :
  invalid replacement for field ?number?, should be from class
?integer? or a subclass (was class ?NULL?)

(This used to work, with "number" being set to
"integer(0)"). In fact
it is now extremely strict, not even allowing a double literal which
is equal to an integer:
> Foo$new(number=1)
Error in function (value)  :
  invalid replacement for field ?number?, should be from class
?integer? or a subclass (was class ?numeric?)

I don't see anything about this in the NEWS, so I was wondering if I
could get clarification on whether this is now the intended behaviour,
before I further modify the package. I must say that this will be a
bit of a pain to "correct"...

All the best,
Jon

It's worth actually reading the list you post to ...
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Reference-classes-assignments-to-fields-td3708168.html


On Aug 5, 2011, at 6:41 AM, Jon Clayden wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I've just had a package update bounced from CRAN because of a recent
> change in R-devel which seems to affect the behaviour of the
> initFields() reference class method. (The change must be very recent
> because I tested the package on a week-old build of R-devel.) It seems
> that the method no longer coerces its arguments to the expected type
> of each field. For a simple example:
> 
>> Foo <- setRefClass("Foo",
fields=list(number="integer"), methods=list(initialize=function
(number = NULL) initFields(number=number)))
>> Foo$new()
> Error in function (value)  :
>  invalid replacement for field ?number?, should be from class
> ?integer? or a subclass (was class ?NULL?)
> 
> (This used to work, with "number" being set to
"integer(0)"). In fact
> it is now extremely strict, not even allowing a double literal which
> is equal to an integer:
> 
>> Foo$new(number=1)
> Error in function (value)  :
>  invalid replacement for field ?number?, should be from class
> ?integer? or a subclass (was class ?numeric?)
> 
> I don't see anything about this in the NEWS, so I was wondering if I
> could get clarification on whether this is now the intended behaviour,
> before I further modify the package. I must say that this will be a
> bit of a pain to "correct"...
> 
> All the best,
> Jon
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 
>