[R] data encapsulation with classes

[hadley wickham]

On 4/8/07, Roger Bivand <Roger.Bivand at nhh.no> wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Apr 2007, Peter Williams wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I'm new to R from a C and Octave/Matlab background.  I am trying to
> > construct some classes in R to which I want to attach pieces of data.
> > First, is attr(obj, 'member name') <- data the accepted way of doing
> > this?
>
> No, it isn't. You seem to be trying to deduce new-style classes from a
> representation used before R 2.4, but in any case it would not be
> sensible. Please consult John M. Chambers. Programming with Data.
> Springer, New York, 1998, and/or William N. Venables and Brian D. Ripley.
> S Programming. Springer, New York, 2000, or for a shorter online resource:
>
> http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/S-Workshop/Gentleman/Methods.pdf

Unfortunately, all of those references are at least 4 years out of
date when it comes to S4 methods.  Is there any comprehensive
reference of the current implementation of the S4 OO system apart from
the source code?

Hadley