[R] Getting *types* of arguments?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005, Liaw, Andy wrote:

> Not to my knowledge.  In some cases an argument to a function can take on
> different types, especially S3 methods.  The only sure way is to read the
> help page (or if necessarily, the code).
>
> This is one thing that stumbles me sometimes:  Some help pages describes
> what the argument does, but not what it needs to be.  In some cases it may
> be obvious, but not all...

Or if they say, they say inaccurately.  Often coercion is not mentioned, 
for example, and I keep on finding ones that are years out of date.

So

> or if necessarily, the code

usually is necessary.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595