[Rd] Creating a reference class object from a class definition in a package fails

[John Chambers]

Yes, as noted in my previous mail, which crossed yours.  If you included 
the TestClass  in a code_file= in the package skeleton, the default 
NAMESPACE file from package.skeleton() will do that for you:

exportPattern("^[[:alpha:]]+")
exportClasses(
     "TestClass"

It's certainly true that _if_ you have a namespace file, reference 
classes (and all other classes) and generator objects have to be 
exported to be used outside the package.  Still not quite clear, though, 
why _any_ namespace file is needed.

Thanks for the catch.

John


On 2/3/11 1:46 PM, Jeffrey Horner wrote:
> Apparently reference classes must be declared in the NAMESPACE file
> via an S4 declaration. If I place the following in the NAMESPACE file
> all is well:
>
> exportClasses(TestClass)
> export(TestClass)
>
>
> Jeff
>
> On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Jeffrey Horner<jeffrey.horner at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm trying to create a package that contains reference class
>> definitions from which users can create reference objects, but there
>> seems to be something awry.
>>
>> My toy example creates an empty package via
>> package.skeleton('TestClass') to which I add the following R code:
>>
>> TestClass<- setRefClass('TestClass',fields=c('name'))
>>
>> Unfortunately my R console output bears this:
>>
>>> library(TestClass)
>>> TestClass$new(name='foo')
>> Error: attempt to apply non-function
>>> getRefClass('TestClass')$new(name='foo')
>> Error: attempt to apply non-function
>>
>> Creating the same reference class in the global environment works though:
>>
>>> x<- setRefClass('TestClass',fields='name')
>>> x$new(name='foo')
>> An object of class "TestClass"
>> <environment: 0x82a43cc>
>>
>> I'm new to S4 and reference classes, so maybe I'm missing something fundamental?
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>>> sessionInfo()
>> R version 2.13.0 Under development (unstable) (2011-02-02 r54197)
>> Platform: i686-pc-linux-gnu (32-bit)
>>
>> locale:
>>   [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
>>   [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
>>   [5] LC_MONETARY=C              LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
>>   [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
>>   [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
>> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>>
>> attached base packages:
>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  utils     methods   base
>>
>> other attached packages:
>> [1] TestClass_1.0
>>
>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>> [1] tools_2.13.0
>>
>
>
>