[Rd] Accessing data files w/ --use-zip-data

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Paul Gilbert wrote:

> Jeff Gentry wrote:
> 
> >...
> >The issue that Duncan suggested I raise is whether or not it should be
> >considered accepted behaviour for a package author to be accessing files
> >in <pkg>\data (at this time I don't know the reasoning behind the specific
> >example here, I just know that that's what they've done) or if this should
> >be considered a Bad Thing.
> >
> I do this in some instances where I have data in a format not supported 
> by data(), for example,  database files that are used by package 
> programs or tests (but I have always wondered if it is "the right" thing 
> to do).  If it is considered a Bad Thing then there needs to be another 
> location for files like this, perhaps inst/data or something like that.


inst/data will get copied into data in the installed version.

We would prefer you used inst/mydata copied to mydata (for some value of
`mydata' != `data'), as package spatial does.  This allows the QC tools to
check out aspects of the installed data directory unhindered.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595