Example of object oriented programming in R

EmailClass.R

#' Constructor
EmailClass <- function(name, email) {
	nc = list(
		name = name,
		email = email,
		get = function(x) nc[[x]],
		set = function(x, value) nc[[x]] <<- value,
		props = list(),
		history = list(),
		getHistory = function() return(nc$history),
		getNumMessagesSent = function() return(length(nc$history))
	)
	#Add a few more methods
	nc$sendMail = function(to) {
		cat(paste("Sending mail to", to, 'from', nc$email))
		h <- nc$history
		h[[(length(h)+1)]] <- list(to=to, timestamp=Sys.time())
		assign('history', h, envir=nc)
	}
	nc$addProp = function(name, value) {
		p <- nc$props
		p[[name]] <- value
		assign('props', p, envir=nc)
	}
	nc <- list2env(nc)
	class(nc) <- "EmailClass"
	return(nc)
}

#' Define S3 generic method for the print function.
print.EmailClass <- function(x) {
	if(class(x) != "EmailClass") stop();
	cat(paste(x$get("name"), "'s email address is ", x$get("email"), sep=''))
}

if(FALSE) {  #Test code that won't be run when sourcing this file
	test <- EmailClass(name="Jason", "jason@bryer.org")
	test$addProp('hello', 'world')
	test$props
	test
	class(test)
	str(test)
	test$get("name")
	test$get("email")
	test$set("name", "Heather")
	test$get("name")
	test
	test$sendMail("jbryer@excelsior.edu")
	test$getHistory()
	test$sendMail("test@domain.edu")
	test$getNumMessagesSent()
	
	test2 <- EmailClass("Nobody", "dontemailme@nowhere.com")
	test2
	test2$props
	test2$getHistory()
	test2$sendMail('nobody@exclesior.edu')
}

I'm still trying to get my head around the best way to do OO in R, and this looks fairly simple. My question is - what if you want to want to generate a sequence of objects of a given class? Say, instead of emails, the object is a an animal in a simulation. You want to generate hundreds of animals to start with, and have the ability to add new animals to the population, or remove them. From what I've been able to figure out, you can't create sequential lists of "environments".

>f=list()
>f[1]=EmailClass(name="Jason", "jason@bryer.org")
Error in f[1] = EmailClass(name = "Jason", "jason@bryer.org") : 
  environments cannot be coerced to other types

I think the problem is that you need to use '[[' to assign into the list. f = list() f[[1]] = EmailClass(name="Jason", "jason@bryer.org")

…

-Jason

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 11:57 PM, ozjimbob ***@***.*** wrote: I'm still trying to get my head around the best way to do OO in R, and this looks fairly simple.  My question is - what if you want to want to generate a sequence of objects of a given class?  Say, instead of emails, the object is a an animal in a simulation.  You want to generate hundreds of animals to start with, and have the ability to add new animals to the population, or remove them.  From what I've been able to figure out, you can't create sequential lists of "environments". <pre> >f=list() >f[1]=EmailClass(name="Jason", ***@***.***") Error in f[1] = EmailClass(name = "Jason", ***@***.***") :  environments cannot be coerced to other types </pre> --- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://gist.github.com/1647595