extend: Extends a object

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

Extends a object

Description

via a mechanism known as "parasitic inheritance". Simply speaking this method "extends" the class of an object. What is actually happening is that it creates an instance of class name ...className, by taking another object and add ...className to the class list and also add all the named values in ... as attributes.

The method should be used by the constructor of a class and nowhere else.

Usage

## Default S3 method:
extend(this, ...className, ...)

Arguments

this	Object to be extended.
...className	The name of new class.
...	Attribute fields of the new class.

Value

Returns an object of class ...className.

Author(s)

Henrik Bengtsson

Examples

setConstructorS3("MyDouble", function(value=0, ...) {
  extend(as.double(value), "MyDouble", ...)
})

setMethodS3("as.character", "MyDouble", function(object, ...) {
  fmtstr <- attr(object, "fmtstr")
  if (is.null(fmtstr))
    fmtstr <- "%.6f"
  sprintf(fmtstr, object)
})

setMethodS3("print", "MyDouble", function(object, ...) {
  print(as.character(object), ...)
})

x <- MyDouble(3.1415926)
print(x)

x <- MyDouble(3.1415926, fmtstr="%3.2f")
print(x)
attr(x, "fmtstr") <- "%e"
print(x)






setConstructorS3("MyList", function(value=0, ...) {
  extend(list(value=value, ...), "MyList")
})

setMethodS3("as.character", "MyList", function(object, ...) {
  fmtstr <- object$fmtstr
  if (is.null(fmtstr))
    fmtstr <- "%.6f"
  sprintf(fmtstr, object$value)
})

setMethodS3("print", "MyList", function(object, ...) {
  print(as.character(object), ...)
})

x <- MyList(3.1415926)
print(x)
x <- MyList(3.1415926, fmtstr="%3.2f")
print(x)
x$fmtstr <- "%e"
print(x)

R.oo documentation built on June 8, 2025, 11:47 a.m.