Consider: foo <- function(x, y, ...) { UseMethod("foo") }
foo.default <- function(x, y = 0, ...) { cat(sprintf("%s: x=%s, y=%s\n", as.character(match.call()[[1L]]), x, y)) if (...length()) str(list(...)) } foo.C <- function(x, y = 3, ...) { cat(sprintf("%s: x=%s, y=%s\n", as.character(match.call()[[1L]]), x, y)) if (...length()) str(list(...)) NextMethod("foo", x = x, y = y) } c <- structure(class = "C", 1) # 'x' winds up in ..1 foo(c) # foo.C: x=1, y=3 # foo.default: x=1, y=3 # List of 1 # $ : 'C' num 1 # empty ...! foo(x=c) # foo.C: x=1, y=3 # foo.default: x=1, y=3 # now both x is ..1, y is ..2 foo(c, 4) # foo.C: x=1, y=4 # foo.default: x=1, y=4 # List of 2 # $ : 'C' num 1 # $ : num 4 # perhaps predictably, ...length()==0 foo(x=c, y=4) # foo.C: x=1, y=4 # foo.default: x=1, y=4 I've tried re-reading ?NextMethod a few times as well as R-lang [1] & can't make heads or tails of this. I've also come across related 2012 (!) thread [2] and tangentially-related bug [3]. Is this intended behavior? If so, might I reiterate Henrik's long-ago request for better documentation of how to work around this? For some added context, where I actually encountered this, my S3 method is mainly written to overwrite the defaults of a parent class's method. Mike C [1] https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-devel/R-lang.html#NextMethod [2] https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2012-October/065016.html [3] https://bugs.r-project.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15654 ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel