Fascinating. Or, well, not.
Failing to use a method signature that is compatible with the generic is a
no-no. So your bug seems to me to be outside the bounds of how R is supposed to
be used. So don't do that.
On April 17, 2024 4:25:38 PM PDT, "Boylan, Ross via R-help"
<r-help@r-project.org> wrote:
>When a generic (S4) has an argument with a default followed by ..., missing()
>doesn't seem to work if the method omits the ...
>--------------------Sample-------------------------------
>foo <- function(x, y=0, ...){
> "you are very generic"
>}
>
># no ... in function arguments
>setMethod("foo", signature="character", function(x, y=0){
> if (missing(y))
> return("must give y for character")
> y
>})
>
>setMethod("foo", signature="numeric", function(x, y=0, ...){
> if (missing(y))
> return("must give y for numeric")
> y
>})
>
>print(foo("a")) #[1] 0
>print(foo(0)) #[1] "must give y for numeric"
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>It's the result for foo("a") I'm puzzled by, since missing(y) does not
>evaluate to TRUE.
>
>Background
>==========
>The methods documentation has 2 points on which the above definitions may fail.
>
>1. The generic has regular arguments and ... arguments. But dotsMethods docs
>say
> > either the signature of the generic function is "..." only, or it
> > does not contain "..."
>Since the arguments in ... are not part of the signatures I think I'm OK, but
>another reading is that
>one just shouldn't mix ... and other arguments.
>
>2. setMethod docs say
> > The definition must be a function with the same formal arguments as the
> generic; however, setMethod() will handle methods that add arguments, if ...
> is a formal argument to the generic.
>Since the initial definition has arguments x, y, ... and the first method
>definition has only x, y, the arguments don't match. So maybe that's the
>problem.
>
>I don't know if the fact that y has a default value matters.
>
>The real code has a function f that ordinarily requires an additional piece of
>information, y, to compute a result. But for one class, the result doesn't
>depend on y and so that argument may be omitted.
>
>Context
>======
>R 4.3.3 on MS-Windows under RStudio 2023.12.1 build 402.
>
>Thanks for any insights.
>Ross
>
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--
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
______________________________________________
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