[R] packages & data-sets

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, Meinhard Ploner wrote:

> It's possible to create a package with functions and data,
> from which the use
> 
> library(pkg-name)
> 
> "attaches" not only the functions, but also the data?
> I want avoid to use
> 
> data(dataset, package="name")
> 
> because this makes a global copy of the data-set ...

What do you mean by `global'?  You cannot have access to R data without
having it in memory and having it visible.  You don't need to have it in
the user workspace (.GlobalEnv), though.  Suggestions:

1) See how MASS does it.  Data objects are loaded into the MASS namespace 
on first use.

2) See ?attach and attach an R save file containing your datasets -- 
wasteful unless you use them all at once.

It is planned that data() will be superseded by a better mechanism in R 
2.0.0 (but that plan has slipped a bit already, which is why MASS does it 
differently).

-- 
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