Da,

I've been following this thread and I'm still confused as to exactly what
you want/why you want it.

I'm probably just missing some context here, but, If() doesn't operate on
matrices, generally. Can you give an example of the type of code you want
to have continue to run that requires if operation *directly* on one of
your matrix objects, as opposed, say, to a value pulled out from it, or the
dot-product of two vectors in your system, both of which would be values
(scalars) not matrices.

Now ifelse(), is of course, a different beast altogether, and would need to
be overloaded within your system, I imagine.

Best,
~G

On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 12:52 PM, Da Zheng <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 2:50 PM, Michael Lawrence
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 12:36 PM, Da Zheng <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> In my case, I create a new type of matrices and override matrix
> >> operations in R for these matrices.
> >> My goal is to make the system as transparent as possible, which means
> >> my system should execute the existing R code without modification.
> >> The problem is that when data is in my own vectors or matrices, "if"
> >> or "while" can't access their values unless we explicitly convert them
> >> into R objects. But this means users need to modify the existing code.
> >> So I hope I can override "if", "while", etc to access data in my own
> >> vectors and matrices directly.
> >> Does this sound reasonable?
> >>
> >
> > Would you really need the alternate representation for scalar logicals?
> >
> > I can see a case in the deferred evaluation context, although it would be
> > problematic wrt side effects unless the deferral is complete.
> This is exactly why I want to use my own matrix objects and redefine
> "if" for the matrices. In my framework, all matrices are read-only, so
> there isn't side effect.
>
> Best,
> Da
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Da
> >>
> >> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:22 PM, Michael Lawrence
> >> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> > I'm curious as to precisely why someone would want to do this.
> >> >
> >> > On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 11:49 AM, Da Zheng <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> I'm just curious. Why making "if" generic is even more dangerous?
> >> >>
> >> >> Best,
> >> >> Da
> >> >>
> >> >> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 1:22 PM, Gábor Csárdi <[email protected]
> >
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> > `!` is a generic, `if` is not. You can define an `if` that is
> >> >> > generic,
> >> >> > but this might be even more dangerous....
> >> >> >
> >> >> > ❯ `if` <- function(a, b, c) UseMethod("if")
> >> >> > ❯ `if.default` <- function(a,b,c) base::`if`(a, b, c)
> >> >> > ❯ `if.foo` <- function(a, b, c) FALSE
> >> >> > ❯ a <- structure(42, class = "foo")
> >> >> >
> >> >> > ❯ if (a) TRUE else FALSE
> >> >> > [1] FALSE
> >> >> >
> >> >> > ❯ if (1) TRUE else FALSE
> >> >> > [1] TRUE
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Gabor
> >> >> >
> >> >> > On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 5:47 PM, Da Zheng <[email protected]>
> >> >> > wrote:
> >> >> >> Thanks.
> >> >> >> Can I override it for a specific class?
> >> >> >> I can do that for operators such as "!". For example, "!.fm" works
> >> >> >> for
> >> >> >> objects of the class "fm".
> >> >> >> It seems I can't do the same for "if".
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Best,
> >> >> >> Da
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 12:41 PM, Gábor Csárdi
> >> >> >> <[email protected]>
> >> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> >>> You can. Perhaps needless to say, be careful with this.
> >> >> >>>
> >> >> >>> ❯ `if` <- function(...) FALSE
> >> >> >>> ❯ if (TRUE) TRUE else FALSE
> >> >> >>> [1] FALSE
> >> >> >>>
> >> >> >>> G.
> >> >> >>>
> >> >> >>> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 5:36 PM, Da Zheng <[email protected]>
> >> >> >>> wrote:
> >> >> >>>> Hello,
> >> >> >>>>
> >> >> >>>> I heard we can override almost everything in R. Is it possible
> to
> >> >> >>>> override "if" keyword in R to evaluate my own object instead of
> a
> >> >> >>>> logical value?
> >> >> >>>>
> >> >> >>>> Thanks,
> >> >> >>>> Da
> >> >> >>>>
> >> >> >>>> ______________________________________________
> >> >> >>>> [email protected] mailing list
> >> >> >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >> >>
> >> >> ______________________________________________
> >> >> [email protected] mailing list
> >> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >> >
> >> >
> >
> >
>
> ______________________________________________
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>



-- 
Gabriel Becker, PhD
Associate Scientist (Bioinformatics)
Genentech Research

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