[R] getting package version inside .First.lib

[Adrian Baddeley]

Greetings - 

Is it possible, inside .First.lib,
to find out the version number of the package that is being loaded?

If only one version of the package has been installed,
we could scan the DESCRIPTION file, something like

.First.lib <- function(lib, pkg) {
    library.dynam("spatstat", pkg, lib)
    dfile <- system.file("DESCRIPTION", package="spatstat")
    ttt <- scan(dfile, what="", sep="^M", quiet=TRUE)[2]
    vvv <- strsplit(ttt," ")[[1]][2]
    cat("spatstat version number",vvv,"\n")
}

but even this does not seem very safe (it makes assumptions about the
format of the DESCRIPTION file).

Is there a better way?

thanks
Adrian Baddeley