[Rd] callNextMethod fails with "$" generic

[Vitalie S.]

John Chambers <jmc4 at stanford.edu> writes:

> The problem here is that the primitive for `$` does not use standard R
> evaluation on its second argument, so when it is selected as the next method
> the call is effectively x$name regardless of the original call.
>
> If possible, I would avoid such cascaded calls of methods for `$`, precisely
> because of the nonstandard evaluation, which makes the interpretation of each
> level of the call ambiguous.
>
> If this kind of code is needed, then the primitive method  should get a call
> in which the literal name is in place and the object has been coerced
> suitably.
>
> In this example, something like
>
>> setMethod("$", "mylist", function(x, name) {
> +     theName <- substitute(name)
> +     expr <- substitute(xx$NAME, list(NAME = theName))
> +     xx <- unclass(x)
> +     eval(expr)
> + })
> [1] "$"
>> tl <- new("mylist")
>> tl[["z"]] <- 1
>> tl$z
> [1] 1

Thank you,  that helps.

>
> On 11/10/10 4:49 AM, Vitalie S. wrote:
>> Dear Developers,
>>
>> callNextMethods does not work with "$"
>>
>> setClass("mylist", contains = "list"):
>> setMethod("$",
>>            signature(x = "mylist"),
>>            function (x, name){
>>                cat("here:\n")
>>                callNextMethod()
>>            })
>>
>> tl<- new("mylist")
>> tl[["x"]]<- 343
>>
>> tl$x
>> #here:
>> #NULL
>>
>>
>> If I use callNextMethod(x=x, name=name)
>>
>> this error is issued:
>>
>> Error in function (classes, fdef, mtable)  :
>> unable to find an inherited method for function "addNextMethod", for
> signature "function"
>>
>> It must be something "$" specific. If the above is an expected behavior ,
> how
>> should I call next method for "$" generic?
>>
>> My info:
>> R version 2.12.0 Patched (2010-11-01 r53513)
>> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
>>
>> Same behavior for official R 2.12.0.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Vitalie.
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel>