On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 4:47 PM, Ross Boylan <r...@biostat.ucsf.edu> wrote: [...] > First, I'd like to understand more about exactly what is saved to disk > for reference and other classes, in particular how much meta-information > they contain. And my mental model for reference class persistence is > clearly wrong, because in that model instances based on old definitions > come back intact (albeit not with the new method definitions or other > new slots), whereas mine seemed to come back damaged. > > Second, I'm still hoping for some elegant way around this problem (how > to redefine classes and still use saved versions from older definitions) > for the future, both with reference and regular classes. Or at least > some rules about what changes, if any, are safe to make in class > definitions after an instance has been persisted. >> > Third, if changes to R could make things better, I'm hoping some > developers might take them up. I realize that is unlikely to happen, > for many good reasons, but I can still hope :)
I believe that the brand new R6 class system can do this. I mean your saved instances from old classes will be read back properly, with the old methods. They are on CRAN and also here if you want to experiment: https://github.com/wch/R6 Best, Gabor ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel