On Thu, 28 Jun 2018, Therneau, Terry M., Ph.D. via R-devel wrote:
I now understand the issue, which leads to a different and deeper issue
which is "how to assign a proper length to Surv objects".
> Surv(c(1,2,3), c(1,0,1))
[1] 1 2+ 3
The above prints as 3 elements and is conceptually 3 elements. But if I
give it length method to return a 3 then I need a names method, and
names<- pays no attention to my defined length. How do we conceive of
and manage a vector whose elements happen to require more than one
storage slot for their representation? An obvious example is the
complex type, but it seems that had to be baked right down into the
core.
I think you just have to implement all methods required to make it look
like a vector even if it is internally a matrix. Thus, you need methods
for length and for names and names<-. Internally, the names can be stored
as row names.
Further useful methods for "Surv" objects might include
- as.double/as.integer (presumably just extracting the "time"),
- c
- str
Possibly also a dedicated summary.
An example for such a class is our "paircomp" in "psychotools". But I'm
sure there are other/better examples elsewhere.
Best,
Achim
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