R help - Mar 2008 - Definition of "wrapper"?

I think I more or less understand what a ?wrapper? is, but I?d like to hear
how more experienced R users define it, and especially I'd like to know if
there is a formal definition.  In my reading, it seems like there are a
fairly wide range of meanings, but they are all conceptually similar.

I've looked in a couple of the classic R texts, the extensions and
developers' manuals, and R help archives, and didn't find a definition. 
Of
course, I may have missed it.

Thanks in advance.  Bryan

**************
Bryan Hanson
Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
DePauw University
602 S. College Avenue
Greencastle, IN 46135
PHONE     765-658-4602
FAX     765-658-6084
hanson at depauw.edu
http://academic.depauw.edu/~hanson/deadpezsociety.html
http://www.depauw.edu/acad/chemistry/
http://academic.depauw.edu/~hanson/UMP/index.html

On Mar 30, 2008, at 2:51 PM, Bryan Hanson wrote:
> I think I more or less understand what a ?wrapper? is, but I?d like  
> to hear
> how more experienced R users define it, and especially I'd like to  
> know if
> there is a formal definition.  In my reading, it seems like there  
> are a
> fairly wide range of meanings, but they are all conceptually similar.
>
> I've looked in a couple of the classic R texts, the extensions and
> developers' manuals, and R help archives, and didn't find a  
> definition.  Of
> course, I may have missed it.
>
> Thanks in advance.  Bryan
This is a general programming question, likely. This might offer a  
starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrapper_pattern

Greetings from Hanover, IN
> **************
> Bryan Hanson
> Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
> DePauw University
Haris Skiadas
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hanover College

The wrapper wraps, i.e. calls, another function that does the real
work but provides a different or more convenient (or more convenient
for a specific purpose) interface to it or specific syntax.  Often the wrapper
has the same arguments but different defaults and sometimes that
is referred to as a "convenience" wrapper.  Sometimes its used in
the sense of providing an R interface to a C function with essentially
similar arguments.

by is a wrapper to tapply which preprocesses the data in a way
that makes it acceptable to tapply, read.csv and Map are wrappers
to read.table and mapply which are the same but have different argument
defaults, sprintf is a wrapper to the C function of the same name,
%o% is a wrapper to outer.

I don't think there is a formalized definition within R -- the above is
based on current usage.

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 2:51 PM, Bryan Hanson <hanson at depauw.edu>
wrote:
> I think I more or less understand what a ?wrapper? is, but I?d like to hear
> how more experienced R users define it, and especially I'd like to know
if
> there is a formal definition.  In my reading, it seems like there are a
> fairly wide range of meanings, but they are all conceptually similar.
>
> I've looked in a couple of the classic R texts, the extensions and
> developers' manuals, and R help archives, and didn't find a
definition.  Of
> course, I may have missed it.
>
> Thanks in advance.  Bryan
>
> **************
> Bryan Hanson
> Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
> DePauw University
> 602 S. College Avenue
> Greencastle, IN 46135
> PHONE     765-658-4602
> FAX     765-658-6084
> hanson at depauw.edu
> http://academic.depauw.edu/~hanson/deadpezsociety.html
> http://www.depauw.edu/acad/chemistry/
> http://academic.depauw.edu/~hanson/UMP/index.html
>
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