How do I call the `function` function?

Question

I am trying to call the function `function` to define a function in R code.

As we all know™️, `function`is a .Primitive that’s

Answer 1

For completeness’ sake, lionel’s answer hints at a way of calling `function` after all. Unfortunately it’s rather restricted, since we cannot pass any argument definition except for NULL:

mean5 = `function`(NULL, mean(x, ...))
formals(mean5) = formals(mean)

(Note the lack of quoting around the body!)

This is of course utterly unpractical (and formals<- internally calls as.function anyway.)