[Rd] Identical copy of base function

[Jeffrey Ryan]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 9:19 AM, Martin Maechler
<maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>>>>>> Jeffrey Ryan <jeffrey.ryan at lemnica.com>
>>>>>>     on Mon, 27 Feb 2012 07:39:32 -0600 writes:
>
>    > Doesn't this also mean that if Matrix is loaded first,
>    > det() will be calling Matrix::determinant, which could be
>    > quite surprising change in behavior from expectation?
>
>
>    > This seems rather dangerous and 'untrustworthy' to me -
>    > unless I am missing some other hidden mechanism involved here.
>
> The only change in R-devel is that library() does not warn about
> *conflicts* in such a case.

Yes, I understand that is only the warning here - but what, aside from
hiding a conflict (which the user may *indeed* care about), does this
accomplish?

To me, a conflict is something to be aware of - hiding it is where I
become concerned.

Without warning, one R script may run differently now depending on
packages loaded, and not just package functions explicitly called by
the script.  Without the warning I can envision countless hours
attempting to debug errors - if one is lucky enough to note the change
in behavior.

Behavioral changes can also related to performance.  I had seen this
previously with some cbind behavior when the S4 variant from
package:methods overwrote the (much faster) base::cbind by a package
which I will not name (and has since been fixed).

Jeff

> This behavior (and the R code in library()'s checkConflicts())
> is completely analogous to
>     importFrom("base", det)
>     export(det)
> but as you surely know, we can not (yet?) import from base.
>
> So again: No changed behavior of R, just some warnings less in a
> case where they are typically inappropriate.
>
>    > I haven't read the code yet, and I am sure Matrix will "do
>    > the right thing", but I have strong reservations about
>    > this behavior when applied to the general universe of R
>    > and CRAN.
>
>    > Jeff
>
>    > On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:03 AM, Martin Maechler
>    > <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>    >>>>>>> Matthew Dowle <mdowle at mdowle.plus.com>     on Mon,
>    >>>>>>> 27 Feb 2012 09:59:43 +0000 writes:
>    >>
>    >>    > Hello,
>    >>
>    >>    > Regarding this in R-devel/NEWS/New features :
>    >>
>    >>    > o 'library(pkg)' no longer warns about a conflict
>    >> with a    > function from 'package:base' if the function
>    >> is an    > identical copy of the base one but with a
>    >> different    > environment.
>    >>
>    >>    > Why would one want an identical copy in a different
>    >>    > environment? I'm thinking I may be missing out on a
>    >> trick    > here.
>    >>
>    >> Yes, you are ;-)   The trick is called ``namespace'' :
>    >>
>    >> One example which lead me to implement the above:
>    >>
>    >> The Matrix package has had an identical copy of 'det' for
>    >> a while now, but of course  in the Matrix namespace.
>    >> Because of that, the call to determinant() inside det()
>    >> will correctly dispatch Matrix methods for determinant(),
>    >> whereas base::det() would not.
>    >>
>    >> Martin
>    >>
>    >> ______________________________________________
>    >> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>    >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
>
>
>    > --
>    > Jeffrey Ryan jeffrey.ryan at lemnica.com
>
>    > www.lemnica.com www.esotericR.com
>
>    > R/Finance 2012: Applied Finance with R www.RinFinance.com
>
>    > See you in Chicago!!!!
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel



-- 
Jeffrey Ryan
jeffrey.ryan at lemnica.com

www.lemnica.com
www.esotericR.com

R/Finance 2012: Applied Finance with R
www.RinFinance.com

See you in Chicago!!!!