Object Classes

Description

Determine the class of an arbitrary R object.

Usage

data.class(x)

Arguments

Value

character string giving the ``class'' of x.

The ``class'' is the (first element) of the class attribute if this is non-NULL, or inferred from the object's dim attribute if this is non-NULL, or mode(x).

Simply speaking, data.class(x) returns what is typically useful for method dispatching. (Or, what the basic creator functions already and maybe eventually all will attach as a class attribute.)

See Also

class

Examples

x <- LETTERS
data.class(factor(x))                 # has a class attribute
data.class(matrix(x, nc = 13))        # has a dim attribute
data.class(list(x))                   # the same as mode(x)
data.class(x)                         # the same as mode(x)