R in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Object-Oriented Programming in R: S4 Classes

Now that we’ve seen a quick introduction to object-oriented programming in R, let’s talk about the functions for building classes in more depth.

Defining Classes

To create a new class in R, you use the setClass function:

setClass(Class, representation, prototype, contains=character(),
         validity, access, where, version, sealed, package,
         S3methods = FALSE)

Here is a description of the arguments to setClass.

Argument	Description	Default
Class	A character value specifying the name for the new class. (This is the only required argument.)
representation	A named list of the different slots in the class and the object name associated with each one. (You can specify “ANY” if you want to allow arbitrary objects to be stored in the slot.)
prototype	An object containing the default object for slots in the class.
contains	A character vector containing the names of the classes that this class extends (usually called superclasses).	character()
validity	A function that checks the validity of an object of this class. (Default is no validity check.) May be changed later with setValidity.
access	Not used; included for compatibility with S-PLUS.
where	The environment in which to store the object definition.	Default is the environment in which setClass was called.
version	Not used; included for compatibility with S-PLUS.
sealed	A logical value to indicate if this class can be redefined by calling setClass again with the same class name.
package	A character value specifying the ...