[Rd] data() documentation ambiguous about loaded versus attached packages?
Martin Morgan
mtmorgan at fhcrc.org
Fri Aug 17 22:24:30 CEST 2012
Under ?data
package: a character vector giving the package(s) to look in for data
sets, or 'NULL'.
By default, all packages in the search path are used, then
the 'data' subdirectory (if present) of the current working
directory.
which I think is accurate -- packages have to be attached for their data
to be found; being loaded (as when PkgB Imports: PkgA) is not
sufficient. Later we have
If 'lib.loc' and 'package' are both 'NULL' (the default), the data
sets are searched for in all the currently loaded packages then in
the 'data' directory (if any) of the current working directory.
which I think is incorrect ('currently attached packages') and
If 'lib.loc = NULL' but 'package' is specified as a character
vector, the specified package(s) are searched for first amongst
loaded packages and then in the default library/ies (see
'.libPaths').
which I'm unsure of -- probably 'amongst attached packages'.
FWIW most Bioconductor packages that use data() in function calls
currently do so without specifying 'package', and without specifying an
'envir' argument (hence overwriting user objects in the global environment).
> R.version.string
[1] "R Under development (unstable) (2012-08-17 r60296)"
Martin
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