[Rd] Overloading methods in R

[Tony Plate]

If I understand what you are looking for, I believe your assumption (1) 
is FALSE, not TRUE as you suspected.

One thing to realize is that "methods" in R are very different to those 
in other common "object-oriented" languages such as C++, Java, or 
Python.  One difference is that methods are not intimately associated 
with a class definition -- the method dispatch system pulls disparate 
pieces of information together.  Another difference is that the choice 
of which method to invoke can depend on all arguments, not just the first.

Yet another thing to realize is that R has two class systems (commonly 
known as something like "S3" and "S4" methods and classes).  Each has 
its own way of defining classes, generic functions and methods.  The S4 
class system offers more control over which method is called.  Consult 
the "Green Book" for details of the S4 system.  (See the FAQ for full 
details of the "Green Book").

Here's an example of something like what you are asking for, using the 
S4 class system.  Note that this example doesn't involve the definition 
of any classes, just a generic and methods for some standard classes. 
Also note that a generic and its methods should have the same argument 
names.

 > setGeneric("foo", function(x,y) standardGeneric("foo"))
[1] "foo"
 > setMethod("foo", c("ANY", "missing"),
+     function(x,y) "x:any y:missing")
[1] "foo"
 > setMethod("foo", c("numeric", "numeric"),
+     function(x,y) "x:numeric y:numeric")
[1] "foo"
 > setMethod("foo", c("missing", "numeric"),
+     function(x,y) "x:missing y:numeric")
[1] "foo"
 > foo(1,2)
[1] "x:numeric y:numeric"
 > foo(1)
[1] "x:any y:missing"
 > foo(y=2)
[1] "x:missing y:numeric"
 > foo(y="bar")
Error in foo(y = "bar") : no direct or inherited method for function 
'foo' for this call
 >

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hope this helps to at least get you started,

Tony Plate

Ali - wrote:
> (1) It seems to me that, generally, in R it is not possible to overload 
> functions. Is that right?
> 
> (2) Assuming that the above is true, or partially true, is there any 
> extra packages to handle overloading in R?
> 
> (3) Assuming (1) is TRUE and (2) is FALSE, can anyone provide some 
> advice on developing some function that understand what the arguments 
> are and then calls the right overloaded function?
> 
> It would be something like this:
> 
> overloadedFunction1 <- function(x) {};
> 
> overloadedFunction2 <- function(x, y) {};
> 
> theFunction <- function(...)
> {
>   # How to identify ... and call the right overloaded function?
> }
> 
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