[R] Comments disappearing from local functions (R 2.14.0)

[Patrick Connolly]

On Thu, 24-Nov-2011 at 08:59PM +0000, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

|> On Fri, 25 Nov 2011, Patrick Connolly wrote:
|> 
|> >On Mon, 21-Nov-2011 at 09:46PM +1300, Rolf Turner wrote:
|> >
|> >[....]
|> 
|> Please don't excise content, nor mix up topics.  I am going to

I was indicating two reasons why I wanted to be able to downgrade to
2.13.1 but I should have modified the subject.  This is what I'd
stated:

|> >My main question is: Can I redo the updating of the packages with
|> >checkBuilt to downgrade them back to the previous version?
|> >Something is not right with either of my installations and I'd
|> >like to revert.


However, that will be unnecessary since I now have perfectly good
explanations for both issues, neither of which I would have figured
out for myself.  


[...]

|> So you missed the NEWS item:
|> 
|>     • The "source" attribute on functions created with keep.source=TRUE
|>       has been replaced with a "srcref" attribute.  The "srcref"
|>       attribute references an in-memory copy of the source file using
|>       the "srcfilecopy" class or the new "srcfilealias" class.

Yes.  I missed that on line 270odd.  It's so long since I set up the
keep.source option I'd forgotten that's what I should have been
searching for. 

|> 
|> This means that if you save a function under R 2.13.1 and
|> load/attach it under R 2.14.0, its kept source (with the comments)
|> is no longer available.

Thanks for that explanation.  I'm still struggling to see what the
benefit of such a change would be.  It didn't look broke to me.


|>  However your original posting did not mention save/attach, nor
|> that you saved under one version and attached under another.  That
|> is hte only circumstance under which I can make it do what you
|> claim.

I was even more ignorant at the time of my first post.  Later
experimentation narrowed down the occasions that produced the
phenomenon which I hoped might help indicate what was behind it.


|> 
|> And now you know not to do that.  Dump your functions in 2.13.1,
|> and source/save in 2.14.0.
|> 
|> 
|> -- 
|> 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


-- 
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.   
   ___    Patrick Connolly   
 {~._.~}                   Great minds discuss ideas    
 _( Y )_  	         Average minds discuss events 
(:_~*~_:)                  Small minds discuss people  
 (_)-(_)  	                      ..... Eleanor Roosevelt
	  
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