[R] Call by reference: Was: Object orientation?

[Thomas Lumley]

On 22 Mar 2001, Peter Dalgaard BSA wrote:

> "Henrik Bengtsson" <henrikb at braju.com> writes:
>
> > To reply to Yves Gauvreau question (Jan 24, 2001) about how to set values
> > within function, it is possible to do without without using the "<<-"
> > assignment operator or other nasty tricks. I had the same problem and I did
> > a nasty workaround two weeks ago implementing the functionality of reference
> > variables, but today I "ran into" the [R] help page for ".Alias". With
> > .Alias one can immitate call by reference! Here is an example that shows how
> > it works:
> .....
> > set <- function(object, value) {
> >   this <- .Alias(object);
> >   this$value <- value;
> >   return (invisible());
> > }
>
> It may work, but I wouldn't think it is documented to do so and could
> easily get blown away by an internal change (and *I'm* not going to put
> checks in to ensure that it keeps working)!


Some of us talked about putting
  Usage: this function should not be used
in the .Alias help page. It doesn't seem to have happened, but you get the
idea.

	-thomas

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