Janko, I'm not entirely sure I understand your proposal. Are you suggesting methods be dispatched based on the *contents* of ... (ie which arguments are in there)? This seems like it would be pretty different from how dispatch behaves now, which is entirely class based.
Even the dispatching based on ... via dots methods is class based, having nothing to do AFAIK with the argument names. From ?dotsMethods A method selecting on “...” is specified by a single class in the call to setMethod <http://127.0.0.1:11942/library/methods/help/setMethod>. If all the actual arguments corresponding to “...” have this class, the corresponding method is selected directly. Otherwise, the class of each argument and that class' superclasses are computed, beginning with the first “...” argument. For the first argument, eligible methods are those for any of the classes. For each succeeding argument that introduces a class not considered previously, the eligible methods are further restricted to those matching the argument's class or superclasses. If no further eligible classes exist, the iteration breaks out and the default method, if any, is selected. No mention of argument name there. ~G On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 9:45 AM, Janko Thyson <janko.thy...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear List, > > I'm currently investigating if the argument dispatch mechanism based on > `...` could somehow be "generalized" to scenarios that involve `r` > recipients located across `c` calling stack layers *and* combined with the > S4 method mechanism (for those interested see > > http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26963900/generalizing-three-dots-argument-dispatch-s4-methods-for-argument-set-i > for an (conceptual) approach of how this could be realized). > > AFAICT, this would require that `...` can be *mixed* with other signature > arguments, which is currently not supported as stated in `?dotsMethods`: > > Quote { > Using "..." in a Signature > > Beginning with version 2.8.0 of R, S4 methods can be dispatched (selected > and called) corresponding to the special argument “...”. Currently, “...” > cannot be mixed with other formal arguments: either the signature of the > generic function is “...” only, or it does not contain “...”. (This > restriction may be lifted in a future version.) > } > > Would it be possible to consider lifting this limitation soon? > > Thanks a lot to everyone maintaining R!! > > Janko > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > -- Gabriel Becker Graduate Student Statistics Department University of California, Davis [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
