| StructureClasses {methods} | R Documentation |
The virtual class structure and classes that
extend it are formal classes analogous to S language structures such
as arrays and time-series
## The folowing class names can appear in method signatures,
## as the class in as() and is() expressions, and, except for
## the classes commented as VIRTUAL, in calls to new()
"matrix"
"array"
"ts"
"structure" ## VIRTUAL
Objects can be created by calls of the form new(Class, ...),
where Class is the quoted name of the specific class (e.g.,
"matrix"), and the other arguments, if any, are interpreted as
arguments to the corresponding function, e.g., to function
matrix(). There is no particular advantage over calling those
functions directly, unless you are writing software designed to work for
multiple classes, perhaps with the class name and the arguments passed in.
The specific classes all extend class "structure", directly, and
class "vector", by class "structure".
Methods are defined to coerce arbitrary objects to
these classes, by calling the corresponding basic function, for
example, as(x, "matrix") calls as.matrix(x).