[R-sig-ME] Interdependence of lme and lmer methods?

[David Afshartous]

All,

Has anyone noticed interdependence of lmer and lmer methods, i.e., problems
w/ methods when one is estimating models via both lme and lmer in the same
session?  Example below. I searched the archives and didn't see anything.


> sessionInfo()
R version 2.5.1 (2007-06-27)
i386-apple-darwin8.9.1

locale:
en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] "stats"     "graphics"  "grDevices" "utils"     "datasets"  "methods"
"base"     

other attached packages:
    nlme 
"3.1-84" 
> fm1 = lme(Thickness ~ 1, random = ~ 1 | Lot, Oxide)
> ranef(fm1)
  (Intercept)
1   -3.702524
2  -11.996179
3    0.928997
4   -4.779622
5   14.392722
6   20.747600
7   -8.764885
8   -6.826109
## ranef methol works fine.
## now load lme4 via menu far:
Loading required package: Matrix
Loading required package: lattice
> ranef(fm1)
Error in function (classes, fdef, mtable)  :
    unable to find an inherited method for function "ranef", for signature
"lme"

## ranef no longer works
## load nlme again via menu bar

Attaching package: 'nlme'


    The following object(s) are masked from package:lme4 :

     BIC,
     VarCorr,
     fixef,
     gsummary,
     lmList,
     pooledSD,
     ranef 

> ranef(fm1)
  (Intercept)
1   -3.702524
2  -11.996179
3    0.928997
4   -4.779622
5   14.392722
6   20.747600
7   -8.764885
8   -6.826109

## now it works fine

In the other direction, similar problems for ranef on lmer models.
for both directions, quick fix solution is to re-load the package for
which the ranef statement applies


Cheers,
David