[Rd] Should slot<-() alter its first argument?

[William Dunlap]

We noticed that the slot<- function alters its first argument, which goes
against the grain of a functional language.  The similar @<- does not
change its first argument.  Is this intended?  The timeSeries and distr
package depend on this altering.

> setClass("Z", rep=representation(x="character"))
> z <- new("Z", x="orig")
> `@<-`(z, "x", value="newer")
An object of class "Z"
Slot "x":
[1] "newer"

> z
An object of class "Z"
Slot "x":
[1] "orig"

>
> `slot<-`(z, "x", value="newest")
An object of class "Z"
Slot "x":
[1] "newest"

> z
An object of class "Z"
Slot "x":
[1] "newest"

Bill Dunlap
TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com

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