Joris,

I looked at the problem. Here is a minimal example reproducing
the error

setGeneric("myplus",function(x,y,...) standardGeneric("myplus"))
setMethod("myplus",c(x="numeric",y="numeric"),
          function(x,y,z=0) x+y+z
          )
setMethod("myplus",c(x="numeric",y="list"),
          function(x,y,...) callGeneric(x,unlist(y),...)
          )

myplus(1,1)   ## 2; OK
myplus(1,1,1) ## 3; OK

myplus(1,list(1)) ## 2; OK
myplus(1,list(1),z=1) ## 3; OK

a.c1 <- 1
myplus(1,list(1),z=a.c1) ## 3; OK

test <- function(x,y) {
  a.c <- 1    ## Problem occurs when using '.' in variable name
  myplus(a,y,z=a.c)
}

test(1,list(1)) ## error
test(1,1)  ## 3; OK

It looks like a bug. I went through all environments from inside
the call of myplus("numeric","numeric") and a.c is nicely located
in parent.frame(6) with the value 1. However, when it has a '.' (dot)
in the variable name, the variable is not found. If it has a name
without a '.' (dot) there is no problem:

test <- function(x,y) {
  a <- 1
  myplus(a,y,z=a)
}

test(1,list(1)) ## 3; OK

- Niels

On 26/08/10 15.32, Joris Meys wrote:
Dear all,

This problem came up initially while debugging a function, but it
seems to be a more general problem of R. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't
find another explanation. Let me illustrate with the raster package.

For an object "RasterLayer" (which inherits from Raster), there is a
method xyValues defined with the signature
(object="RasterLayer",xy="matrix"). There is also a method with
signature (object="Raster",xy="vector"). The only thing this method
does, is change xy into a matrix and then pass on to the next method
using callGeneric again. Arguments are passed.

Now this all works smoothly, as long as you stay in the global environment :
require(raster)

a<- raster()
a[]<- 1:ncell(a)

origin<- c(-80,50)
eff.dist<- 100000

unlist(xyValues(a,xy=origin,buffer=eff.dist))
[1] 14140 14141 14500 14501

Now let's make a very basic test function :

test<- function(x,orig.point){
     eff.distance<- 100000
     p<- unlist(xyValues(x,xy=orig.point,buffer=eff.distance))
     return(p)
}

This gives the following result :
test(a,origin)
Error in .local(object, xy, ...) : object 'eff.distance' not found

huh? Apparently, eff.distance got lost somewhere in the parsetree (am
I saying this correctly?)

The funny thing is when we change origin to a matrix :
origin<- matrix(origin,ncol=2)

unlist(xyValues(a,xy=origin,buffer=eff.dist))
[1] 14140 14141 14500 14501

test(a,origin)
[1] 14140 14141 14500 14501

It all works again! So something goes wrong with passing the arguments
from one method to another using callGeneric. Is this a bug in R or am
I missing something obvious?

The relevant code from the raster package :

setMethod("xyValues", signature(object='Raster', xy='vector'),
        function(object, xy, ...) {
                if (length(xy) == 2) {
                        callGeneric(object, matrix(xy, ncol=2), ...)
                } else {
                        stop('xy coordinates should be a two-column matrix or 
data.frame,
or a vector of two numbers.')
                }
        } )

setMethod("xyValues", signature(object='RasterLayer', xy='matrix'),
        function(object, xy, method='simple', buffer=NULL, fun=NULL, 
na.rm=TRUE) {

                if (dim(xy)[2] != 2) {
                        stop('xy has wrong dimensions; it should have 2 
columns' )
                }

                if (! is.null(buffer)) {
                        return( .xyvBuf(object, xy, buffer, fun, na.rm=na.rm) )
                }

                if (method=='bilinear') {
                        return(.bilinearValue(object, xy))
                } else if (method=='simple') {
                        cells<- cellFromXY(object, xy)
                        return(.readCells(object, cells))
                } else {
                        stop('invalid method argument. Should be simple or 
bilinear.')
                }
        }       
)       




--
Niels Richard Hansen                     Web:   www.math.ku.dk/~richard 
Associate Professor                      Email: niels.r.han...@math.ku.dk
Department of Mathematical Sciences             nielsrichardhan...@gmail.com
University of Copenhagen                 Skype: nielsrichardhansen.dk   
Universitetsparken 5                     Phone: +45 353 20783 (office)  
2100 Copenhagen Ø                               +45 2859 0765 (mobile)
Denmark

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