R6 class should inherit from environment

[richierocks]

Here's the first example from the R6 vignette:

Person <- R6Class("Person",
  public = list(
    name = NA,
    hair = NA,
    initialize = function(name, hair) {
      if (!missing(name)) self$name <- name
      if (!missing(hair)) self$hair <- hair
      self$greet()
    },
    set_hair = function(val) {
      self$hair <- val
    },
    greet = function() {
      cat(paste0("Hello, my name is ", self$name, ".\n"))
    }
  )
)
ann <- Person$new("Ann", "black")

ann is an environment, but its class doesn't inherit from environment.

is.environment(ann)
## [1] TRUE
class(ann)
## [1] "Person" "R6"

This means that S3 methods that work on environments don't work when you call the generic function.

as.list(ann)
## Error in as.vector(x, "list") : 
##   cannot coerce type 'environment' to vector of type 'list'
traceback()
## 2: as.list.default(ann)
## 1: as.list(ann)

as.list.environment(ann) works as expected, but these specific methods are often internal to packages and not available.

It would be useful if R6 objects had class c("R6", "environment").

[gaborcsardi]

Personally, I am not sure. The environment is the implementation, but if you want an opaque type, then you don't want to inherit from it. What if in the future R6 will have a different implementation? E.g. a couple of environments instead of one? (Which it is, if you consider private members.)

Also, non-portable classes are different, there the environment includes self AFAIR.

[richierocks]

Fair enough. I suppose I'd settle for having an as.list.R6 method that simply called as.list.environment.

[wch]

I've thought about this before and I've been on the fence whether to add environment as a class. But I think the idea of having as.list.R6 makes sense.