[Rd] setGeneric() gives "must supply skeleton" when checking package

[Martin Morgan]

On 02/02/2013 02:34 PM, Tim Bergsma wrote:
> r-devel,
>
> In a development version of the CRAN package metrumrg, I write ...
>
> require(reshape)
> setGeneric('cast')
> setOldClass(c('keyed','data.frame'))
> setMethod('cast','keyed', function ...)
>
> The result is satisfactory when sourcing the code directly, but when
> checking the package (which has 'reshape' as a dependency in the
> DESCRIPTION file) I get the following:
>
> "Error in setGeneric("cast") : must supply a function skeleton for
> ???cast???, explicitly or via an existing function."

You haven't mentioned your DESCRIPTION or NAMEPSACE file, but the right thing to 
do is

DESCRIPTION:

Depends: reshape

NAMESPACE:

importFrom(reshape, cast)

R/somefile.R:

setGeneric("cast")

Perhaps your current setGeneric is being performed inside the namespace when 
cast is not yet available (e.g., because it has not been imported)?

Martin Morgan

>
> The help for setGeneric() seems to suggest that no function skeleton is
> needed  when creating a generic for a function defined in some other
> package.  I found one or two previous related posts, but no obvious
> resolution.
>
> Comments appreciated,
>
> Tim Bergsma, PhD
>
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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