CODEWITHSUNDEEP
roopreference-class
Matt Bannert
Matt Bannert

Reputation: 28274

Why do I have to define methods of reference classes inside of reference classes?

Reference classes definitions can pile up quite some lines of code in R. When methods are defined inside a reference class a couple of methods plus the field definitions gives you a quite confusing class definition – at least it's hard to read at 300+ lines. And I have other issues:

So speaking in code, why should I not do something like this?

someDummy <- setRefClass("someDummy", fields = list(df = "matrix",
                                   multiplier = "numeric"))

test <- someDummy()


thingsYouCanDo <- function(){
 rc <- NULL
 mtrx <- NULL
 multi <- NULL
populate <- function(rc,mtrx,multi){
rc$df <- mtrx
rc$multiplier <- multi
}
multiply <- function(rc){
out <- rc$df * rc$multiplier
out
}
return(list(populate = populate,
         multiply = multiply))
}

te <- thingsYouCanDo()
te$populate(test,matrix(1:12,4,3),5)
test
te$multiply(test)

Are there any well written packages on CRAN that make use of RC and are documented well? Speaking of documentation, I do not mean a neat website, but .Rd based documentation. What I have seen a lot lately in other people's source code is function that contain function or list of functions. Should I rather use that?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 119

Answers (1)

Matt Bannert
Matt Bannert

Reputation: 28274

I have found part of an answer to my own question: the lme4 packages uses quite some RC classes and also documents them using .Rd

Upvotes: 1

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