[Rd] YA S4 method dispatch question

[Martin Morgan]

You won't like this ...;)

return(drop(callGeneric(array(x,
                              c(1, length(x)),
                              val)
                        )))

i.e., 'val' is inside 'array'!

I was discouraged from answering sooner by the complexity of your
example; simplifying it might have provided an immediate answer...

> x <- 1:8
> foo(array(x, c(1,length(x)), val)
+ 

! Martin




Paul Roebuck <roebuck at mdanderson.org> writes:

> I recently encountered this and was wondering if someone
> could explain what happened. Basis of question involves
> what the difference between the calls makes as the end
> result is the same:
>
>> identical(matrix(1:8, nrow = 1), array(1:8, c(1, 8)))
> TRUE
>
> If I run the code below as shown, I get the following:
>
>> foo(1:8, 4)
> foo (vector, numeric)
> 	 val = 4
> foo (matrix, ANY)
> 	 val = 500
> foo (matrix, numeric)
> 	 val = 500
> [1] 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500
>
> Exchanging the current return for one of the commented ones
> (HERE) yields the expected answer:
>
>> foo(1:8, 4)
> foo (vector, numeric)
> 	 val = 4
> foo (matrix, numeric)
> 	 val = 4
> [1] 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
>
>
> When invoked with array(), it loses track of the second
> parameter and gives the wrong answer. While it would seem
> to have something to do with the first parameter's
> evaluation time, I don't follow why one works and the other
> doesn't. Forcing the evaluation via assignment (third case)
> also provides the correct result.
>
> Example code follows:
>
>
> ##------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> library(methods)
>
> setGeneric("foo",
>            function(x, val = 500) {
>                standardGeneric("foo")
>            })
>
> setMethod("foo",
>           signature(x = "vector", val = "numeric"),
>           function(x, val) {
>               cat(match.call()[[1]], "(vector, numeric)", "\n")
>               cat("\t", "val =", val, "\n")
> ## HERE ##
> #              return(drop(callGeneric(matrix(x, nrow = 1), val)))
>               return(drop(callGeneric(array(x, c(1, length(x)), val))))
> #              return(drop(callGeneric(xm <- array(x, c(1, length(x))), val)))
>           })
>
> setMethod("foo",
>           signature(x = "vector"),
>           function(x, val) {
>               cat(match.call()[[1]], "(vector, ANY)", "\n")
>               callGeneric(x, val)
>           })
>
> setMethod("foo",
>           signature(x = "matrix", val = "numeric"),
>           function(x, val) {
>               cat(match.call()[[1]], "(matrix, numeric)", "\n")
>               cat("\t", "val =", val, "\n")
>               return(apply(x, c(1, 2), function(m, v) { m <- v }, val))
>           })
>
> setMethod("foo",
>           signature(x = "matrix"),
>           function(x, val) {
>               cat(match.call()[[1]], "(matrix, ANY)", "\n")
>               cat("\t", "val =", val, "\n")
>               callGeneric(x, val)
>           })
>
> setMethod("foo",
>           signature(x = "array"),
>           function(x, val) {
>               cat(match.call()[[1]], "(array, ANY)", "\n")
>               stop(sprintf("method not defined for %s argument",
> data.class(x)))
>           })
>
> setMethod("foo",
>           signature(x = "ANY"),
>           function(x, val) {
>               cat(match.call()[[1]], "(ANY, ANY)", "\n")
>               stop(sprintf("method not defined for %s argument",
> data.class(x)))
>           })
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)
>
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