owa {berryFunctions}

Overwrite argument default lists

Description

Second ellipsis (three dots) passed to particular functions, combining default and user-specified argument lists.
owa can be used in functions that pass argument lists separately to several functions. Internal defaults can be set per function (eg. one list for plot and one for legend).
You can specify which defaults can be overwritten and which should be left unchanged. See the example section on how to implement this.

Usage

owa(d, a, ..., quiet = FALSE)

Arguments

d

Default arguments (list or vector)

a

Arguments specified by user (list or vector). Can also be a single TRUE, in which case d will be returned.

...

Names of unchangeable arguments (that will not be overwritten) as character strings. Can also be a vector with characters strings.

quiet

Logical: Should message be suppressed if arguments are ignored? If FALSE (the DEFAULT), this helps users debugging, as they get notified when arguments they specified were ignored.

Value

Always a list, disregarding list/vector mode of input

Author(s)

Berry Boessenkool, [e-mail], Early 2014, Update Oct 2016

References

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3057341
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5890576
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4124900
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16774946

Examples

# The motivation behind owa:
testfun <- function(...) {plot(7:11, ...) ; legend("top", "some text", ...)}
testfun()
is.error( testfun(type="o") , tell=TRUE)
# Error: legend doesn't have the argument 'type'!

# How to solve this:
testfun <- function(legargs=NULL, ...) # dots passed to plot
   {
   plot(7:11, ...)
   legend_defaults <- list(x="top", lty=1, col="red", legend="owa rocks!")
   # combine defaults and user specified into final argument list,
   # overwrite arguments ('owa') in the default list unless protected:
   legend_final <- owa(d=legend_defaults, a=legargs, "col", "lwd")
   do.call(legend, args=legend_final)
   }

testfun()
testfun(type="l", col="blue")
testfun(type="o", legargs=list(col="blue", pch=16, lty=3) )
# color in legargs is ignored, as it is defined as unchangeable


#----------------------------------------------------------------------------

# basic tests of owa itself:
d <- list(bb=1:5, lwd="was d", lty=1,   col="gray")
a <- list(bb=3,   lwd=5, lty="from a", wachs="A")
owa(d,a) # all changed, wachs added
owa(d, a, "bb", "lwd") # lty is overwritten, bb and lwd are ignored
owa(d, NULL, "bb", "wachs") # NULL is a good default for argument lists
owa(d, c(HH=2, BBB=3) ) # vectors and lists are all converted to lists
owa(d, list(lwd=5, bb=3, lty="1") ) # order of arguments doesn't matter
owa(d, a, c("bb","lwd") ) # unchangeable can also be a named vector
owa(d, a, c("bb","lwd"), c("lty","dummy") ) # or several vectors