as.oce {oce}

Coerce Something Into an oce Object

Description

Coerce Something Into an oce Object

Usage

as.oce(x, ...)

Arguments

x

an item containing data. This may be data frame, list, or an oce object.

...

optional extra arguments, passed to conversion functions as.coastline() or ODF2oce(), if these are used.

Details

This function is limited and not intended for common use. In most circumstances, users should employ a function such as as.ctd() to construct specialized oce sub-classes.

as.oce creates an oce object from data contained within its first argument, which may be a list, a data frame, or an object of oce. (In the last case, x is simply returned, without modification.)

If x is a list containing items named longitude and latitude, then as.coastline() is called (with the specified ... value) to create a coastline object.

If x is a list created by read_odf() from the (as yet unreleased) ODF package developed by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, then ODF2oce() is called (with no arguments other than the first) to calculate a return value. If the sub-class inference made by ODF2oce() is incorrect, users should call that function directly, specifying a value for its coerce argument.

If x has not been created by read_odf(), then the names of the items it contains are examined, and used to try to infer the proper return value. There are only a few cases (although more may be added if there is sufficient user demand). The cases are as follows.

• If x contains items named temperature, pressure and either salinity or conductivity, then an object of type ctd will be returned.

• If x contains columns named longitude and latitude, but no other columns, then an object of class coastline is returned.

Value

An oce object.