[Rd] library() in .Rd Examples (Depends vs. Imports)?

Duncan Murdoch murdoch.duncan at gmail.com
Thu Oct 8 20:12:34 CEST 2015


On 08/10/2015 1:51 PM, Jonathan Greenberg wrote:
> I'm a little confused when documenting my code using Imports vs. Depends.
> If I have an example in my .Rd that uses a library that is listed under
> Imports, it doesn't work, but if it is listed under Depends, it does.  What
> is the proper way to go about using examples that rely on an Imports?
> Should I just if(require(somepackage)) in the example?  Or is there a more
> elegant way of doing this?

The more elegant way is to use somepackage::somefunction(...).   You 
should avoid using require(somepackage), because that modifies the 
user's search list; they may not want you to do that.

Within your own package code you won't need the somepackage:: prefix if 
you import the function in your NAMESPACE file, but help page examples 
are executed in the user's context, so they can't see imports.

Duncan Murdoch



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