Keeping function names when stored in an object

Question

I am preparing a package where users have to store functions and their associated arguments in a list for later use. This is a typical example of how it works:<

Answer 1

I'd suggest to define your parameters argument with the function name, instead of the function itself and retrieve the function in the body of myfunction through match.fun:

    parameters <- list(a1 = list(fun = "dnorm",
                         args = list(mean = 150, sd = 100)),
               a2 = list(fun = "dpois",
                         args = list(lambda = 40)))

    myfunction <- function(x, var, parameters)
    {
        results <- list(var = var,
                y = do.call(match.fun(parameters[[var]]$fun), 
                            c(list(x), parameters[[var]]$args)),
                parameters = parameters)
        class(results) <- "customclass"
        return(results)
    }