\Header{as}{Force an Object to Belong to a Class}
\alias{as<\Rdash}{as}
\alias{coerce}{as}
\alias{coerce<\Rdash}{as}
\alias{setAs}{as}
\keyword{programming}{as}
\keyword{classes}{as}
\keyword{methods}{as}
\begin{Description}\relax
These functions manage the relations that allow coercing an object to
a given class.\end{Description}
\begin{Usage}
\begin{verbatim}
as(object, Class, coerceFlag=TRUE)

as(object, Class, coerceFlag=TRUE) <- value

setAs(from, to, def, replace, where = 1)

\end{verbatim}
\end{Usage}
\begin{Arguments}
\begin{ldescription}
\item[\code{object}] Any object. 
\item[\code{Class}] The name of the class to which \code{object} should be coerced. 
\item[\code{coerceFlag}] A logical flag.  If \code{FALSE},  only inheritance
relations will be used; i.e., \code{is(object, Class)} must be
\code{TRUE}, and if not, \code{NULL} is returned.

If the flag is \code{TRUE}, however, coerce methods will be called if
inheritance is not true (and an error will result if coercion fails).

\item[\code{value}] The value to use to modify \code{object} (see the
discussion below).  You should supply an object with class
\code{Class}; some coercion is done, but you're unwise to rely on
it.

\item[\code{from, to}] The classes between which \code{def} performs coercion.

(In the case of the \code{coerce} function these are objects from the
classes, not the names of the classes, but you're not expected to call \code{coerce} directly.)

\item[\code{def}] A function of one argument.  It will get an object from
class \code{from} and had better return an object of class
\code{to}. (If you want to save \code{setAs} a little work, make
the name of the argument \code{from}, but don't worry about it,
\code{setAs} will do the conversion.) 
\item[\code{replace}] If supplied, the function to use as a replacement
method.

\item[\code{where}] The database on which to store the resulting method for
\code{coerce}; by default, the global environment. 
\end{ldescription}
\end{Arguments}
\begin{Section}{Summary of Functions}
\describe{
\item[\code{as}:] Returns the version of this object coerced to be the given \code{Class}.  


If the corresponding \code{is} relation is true, it will be used.  In particular,
if the relation has a coerce method, the method will be invoked on \code{object}.

If the \code{is} relation is FALSE, and \code{coerceFlag} is \code{TRUE},
the coerce function will be called (which will throw an error if there is
no valid way to coerce the two objects).  Otherwise, \code{NULL} is
returned.

Coerce methods are pre-defined for basic classes (including all the types of
vectors, functions and a few others).  The object \code{asFunctions}
contains the list of such pre-defined relations:
\code{names(asFunctions)} gives the names of all the classes.

Beyond these two sources of  methods, further methods are defined by
calls to the \code{setAs} function.


\item[\code{coerce}:] Coerce \code{from} to be of the same class as \code{to}.

Not a function you should usually
call explicitly.  The function \code{\Link{setAs}} creates
methods for \code{coerce} for the \code{as} function to use.


\item[\code{setAs}:] The function supplied as the third argument is to be called to
implement \code{as(x, to)} when \code{x} has class \code{from}.
Need we add that the function should return a suitable object with
class \code{to}.

}\end{Section}
\begin{Section}{How Functions `as' and `setAs' Work}
The function \code{as} contrives to turn \code{object} into an object
with class \code{Class}.  In doing so, it uses information about
classes and methods, but in a somewhat special way.  Keep in mind
that objects from one class can turn into objects from another class
either automatically or by an explicit call to the \code{as}
function. Automatic conversion is special, and comes from the
designer of one class of objects asserting that this class extends a
another class  (see \code{\Link{setClass}} and \code{\Link{setIs}}).

Because inheritance is a powerful assertion, it should be used
sparingly (otherwise your computations may produce unexpected, and
perhaps incorrect, results).  But objects can also be converted
explicitly, by calling \code{as}, and that conversion is designed to
use any inheritance information, as well as explicit methods.

As a first step in conversion, the \code{as} function determines
whether \code{is(object, Class)} is \code{TRUE}.  This can be the case
either because the class definition of \code{object} includes
\code{Class} as a ``super class'' (directly or indirectly), or because
a call to \code{\Link{setIs}} established the relationship.

Either way, the inheritance relation defines a method to coerce
\code{object} to \code{Class}.  In the most common case, the method
is just to extract from \code{object} the slots needed for
\code{Class}, but it's also possible to specify a method explicitly in
a \code{\Link{setIs}} call.

So, if inheritance applies, the \code{as} function calls the
appropriate method.  If inheritance does not apply, and
\code{coerceFlag} is \code{FALSE}, \code{NULL} is returned.

By default, \code{coerceFlag} is \code{TRUE}.  In this case the
\code{as} function goes on to look for a method for the function
\code{coerce} for the signature \code{c(from = class(object), to =
    Class)}.

Method selection is used in the \code{as} function in two special
ways.
First,  inheritance is
applied for the argument \code{from} but not for the argument
\code{to} (if you think about it, you'll probably agree that you
wouldn't want the result to be from some class other than the
\code{Class} specified).
Second, the function tries to use inheritance information to convert
the object indirectly, by first converting it to an inherited class.
It does this by examining the classes that the \code{from} class
extends, to see if any of them has an explicit conversion method.
Suppose class \code{"by"} does:  Then the \code{as} function
implicitly computes \code{as(as(object, "by"), Class)}.

With this explanation as background, the function \code{setAs} does a
fairly obvious computation:  It constructs and sets a method for the function
\code{coerce} with signature \code{c(from, to)}, using the \code{def}
argument to define the body of the method.  The function \code{coerce}
exists almost entirely as a repository for such methods, to be
selected as desribed above by the \code{as} function.  In fact, it
would usually be a bad idea to call \code{coerce} directly, since then
you would get inheritance on the \code{to} argument; as mentioned,
this is not likely to be what you want.\end{Section}
\begin{Section}{The Function `as' Used in Replacements}
When \code{as} appears on the left of an assignment, the intuitive
meaning is ``Replace the part of \code{object} that was inherited from
\code{Class} by the \code{value} on the right of the assignment.''

This usually has a straightforward interpretation, but you can control
explicitly what happens, and sometimes you should to avoid possible
corruption of objects.

When \code{object} inherits from \code{Class} in the usual way, by
including the slots of \code{Class}, the default \code{as} method is
to set the corresponding slots in \code{object} to those in
\code{value}.

The default computation may be reasonable, but usually only if all
\emph{other} slots in \code{object} are unrelated to the slots being
changed.  Often, however, this is not the case.  The class of
\code{object} may have extended \code{Class} with a new slot whose
value depends on the inherited slots.  In this case, you may want to
define a method for replacing the inherited information that
recomputes all the dependent information.  Or, you may just want to
prohibit replacing the inherited information directly .

The way to control such replacements is through the \code{replace}
argument to function \code{setIs}.  This argument is a method that
function \code{as} calls when used for replacement.  It can do
whatever you like, including calling \code{stop} if you want to
prohibit replacements.  It should return a modified object with the
same class as the \code{object} argument to \code{as}.

In R, you can also explicitly supply a replacement method, even in the
case that inheritance does not apply, through the \code{replace}
argument to \code{setAs}.  It works essentially the same way, but in
this case by constructing a method for \code{"coerce<-"}.  (Replace
methods for coercion without inheritance are not in the original
description and so may not be compatible with S-Plus, at least not
yet.)

When inheritance does apply, coerce and replace methods can be
specified through either \code{setIs} or \code{setAs}; the effect is
essentially the same.\end{Section}
\begin{Author}\relax
John Chambers\end{Author}
\begin{References}\relax
The web page \url{http://www.omegahat.org/RSMethods/index.html} is the primary documentation.

The functions in this package emulate the facility for classes and methods described in
\emph{Programming with Data}, (John M. Chambers, Springer, 1998).  See this book
for further details and examples.\end{References}
\begin{Examples}
\begin{ExampleCode}
## using the definition of class "track" from Classes



setAs("track", "numeric", function(from)from@y)

t1 <- new("track", x=1:20, y=(1:20)^2)

as(t1, "numeric")

## The next example shows:
##  1. A virtual class to define setAs for
##     several classes at once.
##  2. as() using inherited information

setClass("ca", representation(a = "character", id = "numeric"))

setClass("cb", representation(b = "character", id = "numeric"))

setClass("id")
setIs("ca", "id")
setIs("cb", "id")

setAs("id", "numeric", function(from) from@id)

CA <- new("ca", a ="A", id = 1)

CB <- new("cb", b = "B", id = 2)

setAs("cb", "ca", function(from)new("ca", a=from@b, id = from@id))

as(CB, "numeric")



\end{ExampleCode}
\end{Examples}

