R: Building functions – using default settings that can be modified via the dot-dot-dot / three point argument

Before you read this post, please have a look at Enrique’s comment below. He pointed out that the built-in R function modifyList() already does what I wanted to describe in this post. Well, I live to learn :)

I was wondering how I could write a function that uses default settings but accepts a list to overwrite the default settings via the dot-dot-dot / three-point argument. Here comes my solution.

# building a function with a list of default settings
# that can be modified by an optional list passed
# via the dot-dot-dot / three point argument

###############################################################

myFunction <- function(...)
{
  print(hasArg(settings))
}

myFunction()
myFunction(settings=list(par1=8))

###############################################################

# now I define a default setting list

myFunction <- function(...)
{
  print(hasArg(settings))
  # define default settings
  settings = list(par1=10, par2=12)
  print(settings)
}

myFunction()
myFunction(settings=list(par1=8))

###############################################################

# as a next step I replace all the elements passed on to
# settings via the dot-dot-dot argument

myFunction <- function(...)
{
  # default settings
  settings = list(par1=10, par2=12)       
  # if settings argument is used
  if(hasArg(settings)){
      suppliedSettings <- list(...)$settings
      matching <- intersect(names(settings),
                            names(suppliedSettings))
      settings[matching] <- suppliedSettings[matching]
  }

  # function operations
  print(settings)
}

myFunction()
myFunction(settings=list(par1=8))

# Now the settings have changed.

###############################################################

# If now some settings are supplied that do not match they
# are simply not considered

myFunction(settings=list(par1=8, parX=6))
# For convenience I add a line to warn the user in case of not
# matching parameters

myFunction <- function(...)
{
  # default settings
  settings = list(par1=10, par2=12)
  # if settings is supplied
  if(hasArg(settings)){
      suppliedSettings <- list(...)$settings
      matching <- intersect(names(settings),
                            names(suppliedSettings))
      settings[matching] <- suppliedSettings[matching]
      notMatching <- setdiff(names(suppliedSettings),
                             names(settings))
      if(length(notMatching)!=0) warning(paste("The
            following arguments are ignored: ", notMatching))
  }

  # function operations
  print(settings)
}

###############################################################

myFunction(settings=list(par1=8, parX=6))
# now the user is warned when some arguments do not match

by Mark Heckmann, April, 2009

Tags: R / R-Code, building functions, dot-dot-dot