Object: The root class that every class must inherit from

In R.oo: R Object-Oriented Programming with or without References

The root class that every class must inherit from

Description

R.oo
Class Object

public class Object

Object is the root class of all other classes. All classes must extends this class, directly or indirectly, which means that they all will inherit the methods in this class.

Usage

Object(core=NA, finalize=TRUE)

Arguments

core	The core value of each reference referring to the Object. By default, this is just the smallest possible R object, but there are situations where it is useful to have another kind of core, which is the case with the Class class. Note that this value belongs to the reference variable and not to the Object, which means it can not be referenced.
finalize	If TRUE, method *finalize() will be called on this Object when it is garbage collected.

Fields and Methods

Methods:

	$	-
	$<-	-
	.DollarNames	-
	.subset2Internal	-
	[[	-
	[[<-	-
	as.character	Gets a character string representing the object.
	attach	Attaches an Object to the R search path.
	attachLocally	Attaches an Object locally to an environment.
	clearCache	Clear fields that are defined to have cached values.
	clearLookupCache	Clear internal fields used for faster lookup.
	clone	Clones an Object.
	detach	Detach an Object from the R search path.
	equals	Compares an object with another.
	extend	Extends another class.
	finalize	Finalizer methods called when object is clean out.
	getEnvironment	Gets the environment of this object.
	getFieldModifier	-
	getFieldModifiers	Gets all types of field modifiers.
	getFields	Returns the field names of an Object.
	getInstantiationTime	Gets the time when the object was instantiated.
	getInternalAddress	Gets the memory location where the Object resides.
	getStaticInstance	Gets the static instance of this objects class.
	hasField	Checks if a field exists or not.
	hashCode	Gets a hash code for the Object.
	isReferable	Checks if the object is referable or not.
	ll	Generates a list of informative properties of all members of an Object.
	load	Static method to load an Object from a file or a connection.
	names	-
	newInstance	Creates a new instance of the same class as this object.
	novirtual	Returns a reference to the same Object with virtual fields turned off.
	objectSize	Gets the size of the Object in bytes.
	print	Prints an Object.
	save	Saves an Object to a file or a connection.
	staticCode	Method that will be call each time a new instance of a class is created.

Defining static fields

To define a static field of an Object class, use a private field <.field> and then create a virtual field <field> by defining methods get<Field>() and set<Field>(). These methods should retrieve and assign the value of the field <.field> of the static instance of the class. The second example below shows how to do this. The example modifies also the static field already in the constructor, which is something that otherwise may be tricky.

Author(s)

Henrik Bengtsson

References

[1] H. Bengtsson, The R.oo package - Object-Oriented Programming with References Using Standard R Code, In Kurt Hornik, Friedrich Leisch and Achim Zeileis, editors, Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Distributed Statistical Computing (DSC 2003), March 20-22, Vienna, Austria. https://www.r-project.org/conferences/DSC-2003/Proceedings/

Examples

 
#########################################################################
# Defines the class Person with private fields .name and .age, and
# with methods print(), getName(), setName(), getAge() and setAge().
#########################################################################
setConstructorS3("Person", function(name, age) {
  if (missing(name)) name <- NA
  if (missing(age))  age <- NA

  extend(Object(), "Person",
    .name=name,
    .age=age
  )
})


setMethodS3("as.character", "Person", function(this, ...) {
  paste(this$.name, "is", as.integer(this$.age), "years old.")
})

setMethodS3("equals", "Person", function(this, obj, ...) {
  ( identical(data.class(this), data.class(obj)) &&
    identical(this$getName(), obj$getName()) &&
    identical(this$getAge() , obj$getAge() )    )
})

setMethodS3("hashCode", "Person", function(this, ...) {
  # Get the hashCode() of the '.name' and the '.age' fields
  # using hashCode.default().
  hashCode(this$.name) * hashCode(this$.age)
})

setMethodS3("getName", "Person", function(this, ...) {
  this$.name
})

setMethodS3("setName", "Person", function(this, newName, ...) {
  throw("It is not possible to change the name of a Person.")
})

setMethodS3("getAge", "Person", function(this, ...) {
  this$.age
})

setMethodS3("setAge", "Person", function(this, newAge, ...) {
  if (!is.numeric(newAge))
    throw("Age must be numeric: ", newAge)
  if (newAge < 0)
    throw("Trying to set a negative age: ", newAge)
  this$.age <- newAge
})




#########################################################################
# Code demonstrating different properties of the Object class using
# the example class Person.
#########################################################################

# Create an object (instance of) the class Person.
p1 <- Person("Dalai Lama", 67)

# 'p1' is an Object of class Person.
print(data.class(p1))  # "Person"

# Prints information about the Person object.
print(p1)            # "Dalai Lama is 67 years old."

# or equivalent (except that no generic method has to exist):

p1$print()           # "Dalai Lama is 67 years old."

# Shows that no generic method is required if the \$ operator is used:
print(p1$getName())  # "Dalai Lama"

# The following will call p1$getName() since there exists a get-()
# method for the 'name' property.
print(p1$name)       # "Dalai Lama"

# and equivalent when using the [[ operator.
print(p1[["name"]])  # "Dalai Lama"

# The following shows that p1$setName(68) is called, simply because
# there exists a set-() method for the 'name' property.
p1$age <- 68         # Will call p1$setAge(68)

# Shows that the age of the Person has been updated:
print(p1)            # "Dalai Lama is 68 years old."

# If there would not exists such a set-() method or field a new
# field would be created:
p1$country <- "Tibet"

# Lists all (non-private) members of the Person object:
print(ll(p1))

# which gives
#      member class      mode    typeof length  dim bytes
#   1 country  NULL character character      1 NULL    44

# The following will call p1$setName("Lalai Dama") which will
# throw an exception saying one can not change the name of
# a Person.
tryCatch(p1$name <- "Lalai Dama", error=print)

# The following will call p1$setAge(-4) which will throw an
# exception saying that the age must be a non-negative number.
tryCatch(p1$age <- -100, error=print)

# Attaches Object 'p1' to the search path.
attach(p1)

# Accesses the newly created field 'country'.
print(country)       # "Tibet"

# Detaches Object 'p1' from the search path. Note that all
# modifications to 'country' are lost.
country <- "Sweden"
detach(p1)
print(p1$country)    # "Tibet"


# Saves the Person object to a tempory file.
filename <- tempfile("R.methodsS3.example")
save(p1, filename)

# Deletes the object
rm(p1)

# Loads an Object (of "unknown" class) from file using the
# static method load() of class Object.
obj <- Object$load(filename)

# Prints information about the new Object.
print(obj)

# Lists all (non-private) members of the new Object.
print(ll(obj))


 
######################################################################
# Example illustrating how to "emulate" static fields using virtual
# fields, i.e. get- and set-methods.  Here we use a private static
# field '.count' of the static class instance 'MyClass', i.e.
# MyClass$.count.  Then we define a virtual field 'count' via method
# getCount() to access this static field.  This will make all queries
# for 'count' of any object to use the static field instead.  In the
# same way is assignment controlled via the setCount() method.  A
# side effect of this way of coding is that all MyClass instances will
# also have the private field '.count' (set to zero except for the
# static field that is).
######################################################################
setConstructorS3("MyClass", function(...) {
  # Create an instance (the static class instance included)
  this <- extend(Object(), "MyClass",
    .count = 0
  )

  # In order for a static field to be updated in the
  # constructor it has to be done after extend().
  this$count <- this$count + 1

  # Return the object
  this
})


setMethodS3("as.character", "MyClass", function(this, ...) {
  paste(class(this)[1], ": Number of instances: ", this$count, sep="")
})


# Get virtual field 'count', e.g. obj$count.
setMethodS3("getCount", "MyClass", function(this, ...) {
  MyClass$.count
})


# Set virtual field 'count', e.g. obj$count <- value.
setMethodS3("setCount", "MyClass", function(this, value, ...) {
  MyClass$.count <- value
})


# Create four instances of class 'MyClass'
obj <- lapply(1:4, MyClass)
print(obj)
print(MyClass$count)
print(obj[[1]]$count)

stopifnot(obj[[1]]$count == length(obj))
stopifnot(MyClass$count == length(obj))

R.oo documentation built on Nov. 2, 2024, 1:07 a.m.