Advanced Object-oriented Programming In R: Stat... Apr 2026

S3 is R’s original, informal OOP system. It is essentially a list with a "class" attribute.

R6 (via the R6 package ) provides "classical" OOP similar to Java or C++.

Massive, interconnected systems like the Bioconductor project where data integrity is paramount. Advanced Object-Oriented Programming in R: Stat...

Advanced Object-Oriented Programming in R: Strategic Selection

Methods belong to the object . You call them using the $ operator (e.g., my_object$do_something() ). The Core Systems 1. S3: The Pragmatic Standard S3 is R’s original, informal OOP system

90% of R tasks, especially providing print() , summary() , or plot() methods for new data types. Pros: Minimal boilerplate; easy to learn; highly flexible.

Encapsulation (private vs. public fields); reference semantics (modify objects in-place); method chaining. The Core Systems 1

The first step in strategic selection is understanding the fundamental divide in R’s approach to objects: