For the modern alternative, see listOfMethods.
The details in this documentation are retained to allow analysis of old-style objects.
argument
:"name"
. The name of the
argument being used for dispatch at this level. methods
:allMethods
:methods
slot, plus
any inherited methods. Ignored when methods tables are used for dispatch (see Methods "OptionalMethods"
, directly.f
has
formal arguments x
and y
. The methods list object for
that function has the object as.name("x")
as its
argument
slot. An element of the methods named "track"
is selected if the actual argument corresponding to x
is an
object of class "track"
. If there is such an element, it can
generally be either a function or another methods list object. In the first case, the function defines the method to use for any call
in which x
is of class "track"
. In the second case, the
new methods list object defines the available methods depending on
the remaining formal arguments, in this example, y
.
Each method corresponds conceptually to a signature;
that is a named list of classes, with names corresponding to some or
all of the formal arguments. In the previous example, if selecting
class "track"
for x
, finding that the selection was
another methods list and then selecting class "numeric"
for
y
would produce a method associated with the signature
x = "track", y = "numeric"
.