39  hyperframe

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Chapter 39 outlines the S3 methods currently not planned for the class 'hyperframe' (Chapter 16).

39.1 as.environment()

The author does not implement an S3 method to the class 'hyperframe' for the generic function as.environment(), as it would be a simple pipeline of the functions as.list.hyperframe() (v3.7.3, GPL (>= 2)) and list2env() (R version 4.5.3 (2026-03-11)).

Listing 39.1: Workaround: as.environment of hyperframe 
ev = spatstat.data::demohyper |> 
  spatstat.geom::as.list.hyperframe() |>
  list2env()
ev |> 
  as.list.environment() |>
  lapply(FUN = class)
$Group
[1] "factor"

$Image
[1] "imlist"  "solist"  "anylist" "listof"  "list"   

$Points
[1] "ppplist" "solist"  "anylist" "listof"  "list"

39.2 merge()

The author does not implement an S3/S4 method to the S3 classes 'hyperframe' and/or 'groupedHyperframe' for the generic function merge(), for the obstacles explained below.

  1. There is not an S3 method merge.hyperframe in package spatstat.geom (v3.7.3, GPL (>= 2));

  2. Should the author elect to implement an S4 setMethod(f = merge, ...) for the class 'hyperframe', at least two method signatures must be defined,

    • c(x = 'hyperframe', y = 'data.frame')
    • c(x = 'hyperframe', y = 'hyperframe'), for which the author needs to define a match mechanism for hypercolumns.

  3. Should the author elect to implement an S4 setMethod(f = merge, ...) for the class 'groupedHyperframe', at least three method signatures must be defined,

    • c(x = 'groupedHyperframe', y = 'data.frame')
    • c(x = 'groupedHyperframe', y = 'hyperframe'), as explained above;
    • c(x = 'groupedHyperframe', y = 'groupedHyperframe'), for which the author needs to consider the (potentially different) grouping structures of x and y inputs.

The author suggests using the pipeline of functions merge.data.frame() (R version 4.5.3 (2026-03-11)) and aggregate2hyper() as a workaround.