[Rd] Use of R_PROFILE.R / install.R
Kurt Hornik
Kurt.Hornik at wu-wien.ac.at
Mon Aug 9 21:12:15 CEST 2004
>>>>> Prof Brian Ripley writes:
> According to R-exts:
> The second purpose for @file{install.R} is to hold code that needs
> to be executed each time the package is attached, after the image is
> loaded. Few packages have a need for such code so @file{install.R}
> is normally an empty file.
> The optional file @file{R_PROFILE.R} is executed before the code in
> the @file{R} subdirectory and should be used to set up an
> environment needed only to evaluate the code (which is run with the
> @option{--vanilla} command-line flag). Very few packages will need
> such code. Indeed, both @file{install.R} and @file{R_PROFILE.R}
> should be viewed as experimental; the mechanism to execute code
> before attaching or installing the package may change in the near
> future.
> (Actually it's during loading, not attaching, a namespace, for packages
> with namespaces.)
> Looking on CRAN, it seems that two packages use R_PROFILE.R for
> `options(echo=FALSE)', which does not do anything useful AFAICS. A
> non-empty install.R is used for
> require(methods)
> require(boot)
> require("Hmisc")
> data(Wcrit.R)
> and that's not the intention (and in particular require() should have its
> return value checked!) -- this is best done in .First.lib/.onLoad.
> One problem is that the package has no way to prevent a saved image being
> forced with INSTALL --save.
> Since this mechanism is a maintenance nightmare (especially with
> lazy-loading +/- saving images) I propose we drop it for 2.0.0.
> Instead, just as for lazy-loading, we should have a field in the
> DESCRIPTION file, with
> SaveImage: yes
> forcing saving the image, and any other value forcing not saving it.
Fine with me.
Can we perhaps agree to allow both yes/no and true/false for such
logical package DESCRIPTION metadata (and also irrespective of case)?
-k
> Note that most packages which currently save an image probably want to
> use lazy-loading instead and so should have LazyLoad: yes in their
> DESCRIPTION file.
> The proposed change is not backwards compatible but affects very few CRAN
> packages, for all of which there is better solution that is backwards
> compatible. I have not looked at BioConductor or elsewhere, so please
> will package authors let us know of any examples where R_PROFILE.R or
> install.R is essential (and why).
> --
> 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
> ______________________________________________
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