[R] To implement OO or not in R package, and if so, how to structure it?

[PIKAL Petr]

Hi

I do not consider myself as an expert in field of R package programming but if your data are rectangular, why not use data.frames.

OTOH if they are structured in free form (something like lm result) you could use lists.

Did you read this?
https://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Leisch-CreatingPackages.pdf

Maybe it could give you some insight in how to create package.

Cheers
Petr

> -----Original Message-----
> From: R-help [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Alexander
> Shenkin
> Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2017 2:59 PM
> To: r-help <r-help at r-project.org>
> Subject: [R] To implement OO or not in R package, and if so, how to structure
> it?
>
> Hello all,
>
> I am trying to decide how to structure an R package.  Specifically, do I use OO
> classes, or just provide functions?  If the former, how should I structure the
> objects in relation to the type of data the package is intended to manage?
>
> I have searched for, but haven't found, resources that guide one in the
> *decision* about whether to implement OO frameworks or not in one's R
> package.  I suspect I should, but the utility of the package would be aided by
> *collections* of objects.  R, however, doesn't seem to implement collections.
>
> Background: I am writing an R package that will provide a framework for
> analyzing structural models of trees (as in trees made of wood, not statistical
> trees).  These models are generated from laser scanning instruments and model
> fitting algorithms, and hence may have aspects that are data-heavy.
> Furthermore, coputing metrics based on these structures can be
> computationally heavy.  Finally, as a result, each tree has a number of metrics
> associated with it (which may be expensive to calculate), along with the
> underlying data of that tree.  It will be important as well to perform
> calculations across many of these trees, as one would do in a dataframe.
>
> This last point is important: if one organizes data across potentially thousands
> of objects, how easy or hard is it to massage properties of those objects into a
> dataframe for analysis?
>
> Thank you in advance for thoughts and pointers.
>
> Allie
>
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