Greetings, I love the R system and am sincerely grateful for the great effort the product and contributors are delivering. My question is as follows: I am trying to use S4 style classes but cannot write functions that modify an object because paramter passing is by value. For example I want to do this: setGeneric("setData", function(this,fcn,k){ standardGeneric("setData") }) setClass( "test", representation(f="numeric", t="numeric") ) setMethod("setData","test", function(this,fcn,k){ this@t <- as.numeric(seq(-k,k))/(2*k+1) this@f <- sapply(t,FUN=fcn) } ) #----------------------------------------------------------- tst <- new("test") fcn <- function(u){ sin(2*pi*u) } setData(tst,fcn,100) tst@t # it's still empty because of pass by value How can this be handled? Many thanks, Michael [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
by returning the object ? setMethod("setData","test", function(this,fcn,k){ this at t <- as.numeric(seq(-k,k))/(2*k+1) this at f <- sapply(this at t,FUN=fcn) #changed! return(this) #changed! } ) #-----------------------------------------------------------> tst <- new("test") > fcn <- function(u){ sin(2*pi*u) } > New <- setData(tst,fcn,5) > New at t[1] -0.4545455 -0.3636364 -0.2727273 -0.1818182 -0.0909091 0.0000000 0.0909091 0.1818182 0.2727273 0.3636364 0.4545455 On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 2:28 PM, michael meyer <mjhmeyer at googlemail.com> wrote:> Greetings, > > I love the R system and am sincerely grateful for the great effort the > product and contributors > are delivering. > > My question is as follows: > > I am trying to use S4 style classes but cannot write functions that modify > an object > because paramter passing is by value. > For example I want to do this: > > setGeneric("setData", function(this,fcn,k){ standardGeneric("setData") }) > > setClass( > ?"test", > ?representation(f="numeric", t="numeric") > ) > setMethod("setData","test", > ?function(this,fcn,k){ > ? ?this at t <- as.numeric(seq(-k,k))/(2*k+1) > ? ?this at f <- sapply(t,FUN=fcn) > ?} > ) > > #----------------------------------------------------------- > tst <- new("test") > fcn <- function(u){ sin(2*pi*u) } > setData(tst,fcn,100) > tst at t ? # it's still empty because of pass by value > > > How can this be handled? > > > Many thanks, > > Michael > > ? ? ? ?[[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >-- Joris Meys Statistical consultant Ghent University Faculty of Bioscience Engineering Department of Applied mathematics, biometrics and process control tel : +32 9 264 59 87 Joris.Meys at Ugent.be ------------------------------- Disclaimer : http://helpdesk.ugent.be/e-maildisclaimer.php
I think you should be interested by section 5.4 (non-local assignments; closures) in Chamber's "Software for Data Analysis" book published in 2008 by Springer (http://www.springer.com/statistics/computanional+statistics/book/978-0-387-75935-7). Besides the solution proposed in the book, which uses assignment outside functions, there is another possibility: environment objects. They are passed by reference and there are tricks to use them in this situation, but you have to be extremely careful because you break the rules for functional programming. Don't forget generics like "Data<-" to assign in R. See for instance help("names<-"). This is the most conventional and easier way to do this. Best, Philippe Grosjean On 09/06/10 14:28, michael meyer wrote:> Greetings, > > I love the R system and am sincerely grateful for the great effort the > product and contributors > are delivering. > > My question is as follows: > > I am trying to use S4 style classes but cannot write functions that modify > an object > because paramter passing is by value. > For example I want to do this: > > setGeneric("setData", function(this,fcn,k){ standardGeneric("setData") }) > > setClass( > "test", > representation(f="numeric", t="numeric") > ) > setMethod("setData","test", > function(this,fcn,k){ > this at t<- as.numeric(seq(-k,k))/(2*k+1) > this at f<- sapply(t,FUN=fcn) > } > ) > > #----------------------------------------------------------- > tst<- new("test") > fcn<- function(u){ sin(2*pi*u) } > setData(tst,fcn,100) > tst at t # it's still empty because of pass by value > > > How can this be handled? > > > Many thanks, > > Michael > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > >