Internal Generic s3 function name starting with a "." - r

Question

For a package all the internal functions start with a ".".
Example .internalfunciton() and externalfunction(). This is used for quick namespace exporting.
Now I am trying to write a internal s3 method. There seems to be problems with it working with the dot at the start of the function name.
Here is some examples I have come up with to test it:
test <- function(x,...) UseMethod("test", x)
test.class <- function(x, ...) {
print("works like a charm")
}
.dottest <- function(x,...) UseMethod(".dottest", x)
.dottest.class <- function(x, ...) {
print("works like a charm even with a dot")
}
When I test it it ends up like this.
item <- 5
class(item) <- "class"
class(item)
#> [1] "class"
BrailleR:::test(item)
#> Error in UseMethod("test", x): no applicable method for 'test' applied to an object of class "class"
BrailleR:::.dottest(item)
#> Error in UseMethod(".dottest", x): no applicable method for '.dottest' applied to an object of class "class"
This happens when I load the functions locally or use the load_all method afterplacing that test function code in the package or even after installing it as this particular version shows.
Edit: As pointed out in comments some of these tests were invalid anyways due to not being put in the NAMESPACE
It feels like I am missing something with s3 generics.
Below is some context and is the actual code
.RewriteSVG = function(x, file, type) {
UseMethod(".ReWriteSVG", type)
}
.RewriteSVG.GeomLine <- function(x, file, type) {
# Adding extra 1 as this gets us into the inner line.
lineID <- paste(.GetGeomLine(type), "1", sep = ".")
svgDoc <- XML::xmlParseDoc(file)
nodes <- XML::getNodeSet(svgDoc,
paste0('//*[#id="', lineID , '"]'))
# Split the line into smaller polylines
line <- nodes[[1]]
lineAttr <- XML::xmlAttrs(line)
lineAttr <- lineAttr[!(names(lineAttr) %in% c("id", "points"))]
lineAttr <- split(lineAttr, names(lineAttr))
## Get the line points
attr <- XML::xmlGetAttr(line, 'points')
coordinates <- strsplit(attr, " ")[[1]]
## As there will always be 100 points in a graph we can just easily split them into 5 groups
nBreaks <- 6
breaks <- seq(1, 100, length.out = nBreaks) |> round()
start <- breaks[1:(nBreaks-1)]
end <- breaks[2:nBreaks]
1:(nBreaks-1) |>
lapply(function(i) {
segmentCoords <- coordinates[start[i]:end[i]]
args <- lineAttr
args$id <- paste(lineID, i, sep = ".")
args$points <- paste(segmentCoords, collapse = " ")
print(args)
newPolyline <- XML::newXMLNode('polyline', parent=line, attrs = args)
XML::addChildren(line, newPolyline)
})
# Remove old line
XML::removeNodes(line)
# Save modified svg doc
XML::saveXML(svgDoc, file=file)
}
Errors message looks like this
Error in UseMethod(".ReWriteSVG", type) :
no applicable method for '.ReWriteSVG' applied to an object of class "c('GeomLine', 'GeomPath', 'Geom', 'ggproto', 'gg')"
Which comes from the
lapply(x$layers, function(x, graphObject, file) {
.RewriteSVG(graphObject, file, x$geom)
}, graphObject = x, file = file)