Thanks, Luke Tierney - the documentation of update was exactly what prompted my question. Yet, I conclude that writing an update.myobject method is OK. Regards Søren
________________________________ Fra: Luke Tierney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sendt: ti 20-11-2007 14:54 Til: Prof Brian Ripley Cc: Søren Højsgaard; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Emne: Re: [R] Use and misuse of "update" function for non-models. Any views/recommendations?? On Tue, 20 Nov 2007, Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > update() is generic, so the recommended approach would be to write a method > for your objects. > > Creating your own function update() in a package would probably not break too > much, as namespaces would protect most functions using the generic in stats. > But it could be very confusing to users. Maybe. update is generic with a netral set of argument names; on the other hand, the _documentation_ of update is not generic -- it is specific to updating models. So there is opportunity for confusion from that direction. Best, luke > > On Tue, 20 Nov 2007, Søren Højsgaard wrote: > >> Dear all, >> >> I wonder if it is "bad style" (or something worse) to create an "update" >> function which does not work on model objects of the lm, glm etc. type. >> Specifically, I have some graph objects (graphs as mathematical objects, >> not as displays) which I want to alter and for that purpose I thought of >> writing an update function. Would doing so violate a "deeper philosophy" in >> the R system or have other unfortunate consequences. If so, I'm happy to >> hear other suggestions... >> >> Regards >> Søren >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> > > -- Luke Tierney Chair, Statistics and Actuarial Science Ralph E. Wareham Professor of Mathematical Sciences University of Iowa Phone: 319-335-3386 Department of Statistics and Fax: 319-335-3017 Actuarial Science 241 Schaeffer Hall email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Iowa City, IA 52242 WWW: http://www.stat.uiowa.edu <http://www.stat.uiowa.edu/> ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.