[R] unload & reload a (new version of a) package

[Tony Plate]

See ?detach, in particular the 'unload' argument and "Details" (issues 
involve namespaces & methods, among other things).

Also, note that if the package loaded any compiled code (DLL's in Windows), 
some OS's do not support unloading & reloading these.

-- Tony Plate

Harte, Thomas P wrote:
> i'm putting the final touches on a package that i'm developing and i
> noticed
> that if i detach the package, and then re-build & re-install it (using R
> CMD)
> then I can't get the newer version of the package to load in the
> existing R
> session (i have to close it out and start a new session, then the newer 
> version of the package is loaded). 
> 
> looking through the source of 'detach'  i see :
> 
>       .Call("R_lazyLoadDBflush", paste(libpath, "/R/", pkgname, 
>             ".rdb", sep = ""), PACKAGE = "base")
> 
> is there some absolute way similar to the above to flush the package db 
> and ensure that a newer version of the package can be loaded into the
> existing R session? detach calls .Last.lib and seems to go through the
> motions of purging the loaded package; why, then, is the package still
> lurking around in the existing R session?
> 
> it's not a big deal; it's only a minor pain having to re-start an R
> session.
> i'm more interesting in why this is happening.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> thomas.   
> 
> 
> 
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