[Rd] callNextMethod() with builtin group methods fails to create proper environment

[Stephen.Pope at ubs.com]

Hi all,

After all these years, I am finally porting some R-2.3.1-based S4 object
code to R-2.6.1, dealing with all the S4 object system changes that came
in R-2.4.0.

I've run across what appears to be some sort of ommission in the
implementation of callNextMethod() when used with primitives having
group generic methods.

In a stock R-2.6.1 patched (happens to be running on AMD64/RHEL 4, but
that shouldn't matter), the following occurs:

R version 2.6.1 Patched (2007-12-03 r43584)
Copyright (C) 2007 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
ISBN 3-900051-07-0
 ,,,

> options(error=quote(traceback()))
> setClass("Foo", contains="matrix")
[1] "Foo"
> setMethod("Compare", signature(e1="Foo", e2="Foo"), function(e1, e2) {
callNextMethod() })
[1] "Compare"
> f1 = new("Foo")
> f1 == f1
Error in get(fname, envir = envir) : variable ".nextMethod" was not
found
7: get(fname, envir = envir)
6: callGeneric(e1 at .Data, e2 at .Data)
5: .nextMethod(e1 = e1, e2 = e2)
4: .Call("R_nextMethodCall", call, callEnv, PACKAGE = "methods")
3: callNextMethod()
2: f1 == f1
1: f1 == f1

It appears that the issue occurs because the particular set of branches
through the logic of callNextMethod() which result because the next
method, which happens to be:

> selectMethod("Compare", signature("array","array"))
Method Definition:

function (e1, e2)
callGeneric(e1 at .Data, e2 at .Data)
<environment: 0x1582960>

Signatures:
        e1      e2
target  "array" "array"
defined "array" "array"


does not get the various "magic" variables such as .Generic, .Method,
etc. defined in its frame. Thus, callGeneric() fails when, failing to
find ".Generic" then takes the function symbol for the call (which
callNextMethod() has constructed to be ".nextMethod") and attempts to
look it up, which of course also fails, leading to the resulting error
seen above.

The obvious workaround is to avoid callNextMethod() when I know the next
method is one of these primitive group generics, replacing it with the
body of that generic method directly. Straightforward, but unfortunate.

stephen pope
Prediction Company LLC/UBS AG
stephen.pope at ubs.com


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