does roxygen2 support internal S3 methods?

[tdhock]

Hi! roxygen2 gives warnings like "S3 method getStrips.grid needs @export or @exportS3method" for animint2, animint/animint2#148
I see these warnings come from

roxygen2/R/namespace.R

Line 409 in 9652d15

"S3 method {.arg {name}} needs @export or @exportS3Method tag"

These S3 methods are internal (we don't want to export them). Is there any other way to supprress this warning?

[tdhock]

John Fox also was wondering about this on R-devel, https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-package-devel/2024q3/011069.html

[olivroy]

See #1592 (comment)

[tdhock]

that comment says from R-3.5 onward, S3 methods should be registered even if they are not exported. How do you do that with roxygen2? the warning says needs @export or @exportS3Method but I do not want to export.

[olivroy]

Well, that's the thing, the @export tag without documentation has the effect of registering them. https://roxygen2.r-lib.org/dev/articles/namespace.html?q=s3#s3

[tdhock]

right, thanks, that documentation is adequate, I just did not find it until you linked it.
Thanks

'While S3 methods are regular functions with a special naming scheme, their “export” works a bit differently. S3 methods are exported only in the sense that calling the generic with the appropriate class will call the method; a user can’t directly access the method definition by typing its name. A more technically correctly term would be to say that the method is registered so that the generics can find it.'