Unused arguments in R

Change the definition of multiply to take additional unknown arguments:

multiply <- function(a, b, ...) {
  # Original code
}

The R.utils package has a function called doCall which is like do.call, but it does not return an error if unused arguments are passed.

multiply <- function(a, b) a * b

# these will fail
multiply(a = 20, b = 30, c = 10)
# Error in multiply(a = 20, b = 30, c = 10) : unused argument (c = 10)
do.call(multiply, list(a = 20, b = 30, c = 10))
# Error in (function (a, b)  : unused argument (c = 10)

# R.utils::doCall will work
R.utils::doCall(multiply, args = list(a = 20, b = 30, c = 10))
# [1] 600
# it also does not require the arguments to be passed as a list
R.utils::doCall(multiply, a = 20, b = 30, c = 10)
# [1] 600