From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Thu Dec 17 15:24:03 2009
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:24:03 +0100
Subject: [Rd] ?setGeneric garbled (PR#14153)
In-Reply-To: <20091217011512.AE18B2831FE2@mail.pubhealth.ku.dk>
References: <20091217011512.AE18B2831FE2@mail.pubhealth.ku.dk>
Message-ID: <19242.16131.942089.481511@lynne.math.ethz.ch>

>>>>> Ross Boylan <ross at biostat.ucsf.edu>
>>>>>     on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:15:12 +0100 (CET) writes:

    > Full_Name: Ross Boylan
    > Version: 2.10.0
    > OS: Windows XP
    > Submission from: (NULL) (198.144.201.14)


    > Some of the help for setGeneric seems to have been garbled.  In the section
    > "Basic Use", 5th paragraph (where the example counts as a single line 3rd
    > paragraph) it says
    > <quote>
    > Note that calling 'setGeneric()' in this form is not strictly
    > necessary before calling 'setMethod()' for the same function.  If
    > the function specified in the call to 'setMethod' is not generic,
    > 'setMethod' will execute the call to 'setGeneric' itself.
    > Declaring explicitly that you want the function to be generic can
    > be considered better programming style; the only difference in the
    > result, however, is that not doing so produces a You cannot (and
    > never need to) create an explicit generic version of the primitive
    > functions in the base package.
    > <quote>

    > The stuff after the semi-colon of the final sentence is garbled, or at least
    > unparseable by me.  Probably something got deleted by mistake.

That's very peculiar.

The corresponding  methods/man/setGeneric.Rd file has not been
changed in a while,
but I don't see your problem.


    > This is with ESS 5.7.1, Emacs 23.1.1.

exactly same versions here,  but not your problem.

What happens if you start  R  in terminal and call
?setGeneric there ?


Regards,
Martin


    > This is a somewhat newish problem; the help in R 2.7 does not have the problem.

(( peculiar indeed ... ))



[Rd] ?setGeneric garbled (PR#14153)
Martin Maechler