A generic for displaying an object in a cell would be a reasonable solution for this particular problem. However, as soon as you start treating these objects as data (like putting them into a matrix), you're likely going to want vectorized operations over them, which means formalized vector and matrix classes. S4Vectors in Bioconductor facilitates this for vectors, but not for higher-order arrays.
Michael On Sun, Jul 7, 2019 at 4:44 PM Abby Spurdle <spurdl...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I am not sure if there is an existing solution to this, but I want my S4 > > objects inside a list matrix showing correctly. > > R> matrix(lst, 2) > > [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] > > [1,] ? ? ? ? ? > > [2,] ? ? ? ? ? > > Is it possible that the print method for matrix can call some type of > generic > > such as `as.character` or `format` when it encounters such cases? > > I had some difficulty understanding this question. > So, I'm going to paraphrase it. > > R, to the best of my knowledge, does not support object arrays, as such. > (Or if it does, I've certainly missed the memo on this one). > > The closest option, is to create an (S3) list of (S3 or S4) objects. > This is sufficient in the one-dimension case. > However, to provide functionality of two- or three-dimensional object > arrays, one can create a matrix (or array) from the list. > > It's desirable to print such matrices and arrays. > This is possible but the output contains an array of question marks, which > isn't helpful. > > Would it be possible for the print method for both matrices and arrays > (conditional on having a list type), call the format method for each > object, possibly creating a character matrix? > Presumably there are other approaches, but the main thing is that the > output is useful and it's easy for R users to control the way objects (in > matrices and arrays) are printed. > > > Or is there any other place that I can override without introducing a new > S3 class? > > In theory, the simplest approach is to redefine the print method for > matrices. > However, that would be unacceptable in a CRAN package, probably... > > So, unless R Core change the print method, you may have to create a matrix > subclass. > > > Abs > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel -- Michael Lawrence Scientist, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Genentech, A Member of the Roche Group Office +1 (650) 225-7760 micha...@gene.com Join Genentech on LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
