[R] S4 pass-by-value work-around?
Henrik Bengtsson
hb at stat.berkeley.edu
Thu Jun 19 20:08:46 CEST 2008
Quick comment. Use an environment to hold your "fields" and then pass
around the environment variable. Any modification to variables inside
the environment done from anywhere (inside/outside functions) will be
persistent. Then wrap this up in a class structure, overload, say,
'$', '[[', '$<-', '[[<-' to get() and assign() to your object and you
have the first seed of what is done in R.oo.
Note that '$' are '$<-' indeed available for environments. However,
it is not recommended to extend the environment class itself. Instead
you should wrap the environment up in a list and work from that.
Search the R mailing list archives for issues you would/will face if
you inherit from environment.
My $.02
Henrik
(R.oo author)
On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 10:26 PM, Jeffrey Spies <jspies2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Howdy all,
>
> I have a problem that I'd like some advice/help in solving---it has to do
> with R's pass-by-value system. I understand the issue, but am wondering if
> anyone has found a working solution in dealing with it for cases when one
> wants to modify an object inside of a method, specifically when working with
> S4. I'm aware that R.oo is able to deal with this using S3, but I'd really
> rather stick to S4.
>
> The basics of what I would like to do are coded below:
>
> setClass("MyMatrix",
> representation(
> parameters="matrix",
> uniqueCount="numeric"
> ),
> prototype(
> parameters=matrix(numeric(0),0,0),
> uniqueCount=1
> )
> )
>
> setGeneric("createUniqueName", function(object)
> standardGeneric("createUniqueName"))
>
> setMethod("createUniqueName", "MyMatrix", function(object){
> retval <- paste("unique_", object at uniqueCount, sep="")
> object at uniqueCount <- object at uniqueCount + 1
> return(retval)
> })
>
> x <- new("MyMatrix", parameters=matrix(0, 2, 2))
> createUniqueName(x) # returns "unique_1"
> x # x at uniqueCount is still 1
>
> I understand why this is happening, but am wondering how people in the
> community have dealt with it, specifically when using S4. Any advice would
> be appreciated. Also, I am aware that this is somewhat of a silly example,
> but it should allow you to see what I'm trying to accomplish.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jeff.
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/S4-pass-by-value-work-around--tp17997553p17997553.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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