[Bioc-devel] S4 overwrite inspector of virtual class

[Zach Skidmore]

Hi All,

I'm currently transforming the GenVisR package into an Object Oriented system. Currently I have a virtual class and several child-classes. I am wondering if there is a way to tell R to use the inspector of the virtual class only if the inspector of a child class in not defined.

For example say I had a class to store versions of a file-type and I have a slot in the class to store the position. Between different versions of the file-type there may be small differences (for example Chromosome may be capitalized in version 2,3,4 but not version 1). Ideally the child classes for 2,3,4 would be able to inherit the inspector from the virtual class to check the chromosome name and I would define a separate inspector for version 1 which is different.

Any thoughts? Currently both inspectors are called (virtual and the appropriate sub-class), meaning if i added more versions in the future I would have to re-write the virtual and child class. Whereas if I could say ignore the virtual (i.e. default) inspector if another is defined I would only have to write the child class inspector in the future.

Hopefully this makes sense, let me know if it doesn't or if i'm violating a core OO principle, i'm relatively new to object oriented programming.

Thanks, Zach!

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