I use read.metharray.exp() in the minfi package to read .IDAT files from Illumina MethylationEPIC array. I got an unknown annotation:
> rgSet<-read.metharray.exp(base="IDAT/",extended=TRUE)
> rgSet
RGChannelSetExtended (storageMode: lockedEnvironment)
assayData: 1051943 features, 8 samples
element names: Green, GreenSD, NBeads, Red, RedSD
An object of class 'AnnotatedDataFrame': none
Annotation
array: Unknown
annotation: Unknown
Why the annotation is unknown? Thanks!

Looks like 'RGChannelSetExtendeds' is based on the ExpressionSet class, and so using an accessor rather than direct slot access is much preferred.
> eset = ExpressionSet() > annotation(eset) character(0) > annotation(eset) = c("foo", "bar") > annotation(eset) [1] "foo" "bar"