On 17/12/2009 11:08 PM, S Ellison wrote:
I'm writing a package, and would appreciate advice on controlling the
help documentation cross-references for a redefined generic.
I wanted to define a cbind equivalent for an object that mostly behaves
like a data frame. base::cbind dispatches to a data frame method if
_any_ parameter is a data frame, so I defined a new S3 cbind and
cbind.default to handle dispatch on first object only. Though I confess
that redefining cbind leaves me a tad nervous, that all works OK so far.
However, R cmd tells me (rightly) that I haven't documented the generic
and new default. But I don't want to; I want ?cbind to point to the base
package help pages, not to mine.
But then the documentation will be incorrect, since it mentions the
non-standard handling of dataframes, which you've done away with.
Assuming that's not unwise (?), what do I have to do to tell R cmd that
it should not look for Rd docs for cbind and cbind.default in my package
whilst still having my generic handle dispatch correctly?
It looks like one answer _might_ be not to export my redefined cbind -
but will a local generic still work properly if it's not exported?
I would say that what you've done is unwise. I would rename the
function to avoid future confusion, especially if you decide to export
it. Even if it's for internal use only, won't you want a reminder in 2
years time that cbind(a,b) doesn't mean what the documentation says it
means?
Duncan Murdoch
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