From jmc@research.bell-labs.com  Fri Jun 14 20:00:27 2002
From: jmc@research.bell-labs.com (John Chambers)
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 15:00:27 -0400
Subject: Methods package
Message-ID: <3D0A3D4B.E792914@research.bell-labs.com>

There is a new installation of the methods package on r-devel.  Two main
changes:

1.  generic functions are now an actual class (which extends
"function").

2.  method definitions are specific to the package associated with the
generic function, as well as with the name of the generic.

The second change will help methods fit in with name spaces and should
get over problems with conflicting generic function names.

You will have to re-install any of your own packages from source, if you
have been using the result of INSTALL --save (because the meta-object
names now include the package, for one reason).

The symptom that you need to do that is a warning about "methods object
... has no package name" when you attach your package.

Otherwise there should be no change needed for current applications.

John

-- 
John M. Chambers                  jmc@bell-labs.com
Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies    office: (908)582-2681
700 Mountain Avenue, Room 2C-282  fax:    (908)582-3340
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Methods package
John Chambers