On Tue, 23 Dec 1997, JOHN THADEN wrote:
> A related question: Instead of calling this function
> df.subset(), why not call it subset.data.frame() and
> let it be a method function for a generic function
> subset()? The generic function would then be:
>
> subset <- function(df, ...) UseMethod("subset")
>
> This would seem to be more in the Splus style. When
> I first saw "df.subset()", I was sure it had some-
> thing to do with degrees of freedom!
In general one could do so,
however in this case your suggestion could produce a little confusion,
df.subset() was an altered version of subset(), with the difference that
df.subset() re-adjustes factors wheras subset() doesn't affect factor
definition. So if generating a generic subset(), the "df"-part should only
be invoked via a non-default parameter.
However, a generic only makes sense, if you expect more than one method
for this generic. For which objects other than dataframes are you thinking
about needing subset ?
Best regards
Jens
--
Jens Oehlschlaegel-Akiyoshi
Psychologist/Statistician
Project TR-EAT + COST Action B6
F.rankfurt
oehl@psyres-stuttgart.de A.ttention
+49 711 6781-408 (phone) I.nventory
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