methods-package           package:methods           R Documentation

Formal Methods and Classes

Description:

     Formally defined methods and classes for R objects, plus other
     programming tools, as described in the references.

Details:

     This package provides the 'S4' or 'S version 4'  approach to
     methods and classes in a functional language.

     For a complete list of functions and classes, use
     'library(help="methods")'.

Author(s):

     R Development Core Team

     Maintainer: R Core Team R-core@r-project.org

References:

     The R package 'methods' implements, with a few exceptions, the
     programming interface for classes and methods in the book
     _Programming with Data_ (John M. Chambers, Springer, 1998), in
     particular sections 1.6, 2.7, 2.8, and chapters 7 and 8.

     While the programming interface for the methods package follows
     the reference, the R software is an original implementation, so
     details in the reference that reflect the S4 implementation may
     appear differently in R.  Also, there are extensions to the
     programming interface developed more recently than the reference. 
     For a discussion of details see '?Methods' and the links from that
     documentation.

