[R] Packages 'effects' loads 'name' which conflicts with 'lme4' [corrected subject: Package 'effects' loads 'nlme' which conflicts with 'lme4']

[John Fox]

Dear Michael and Spencer,

I've modified the development version of the effects package on R-Forge so that the nlme and lme4 packages are listed under "Suggests" rather than "Depends". In this way,  neither package is loaded along with effects.

Best,
 John

On Thu, 8 Mar 2012 20:45:37 -0500
 Michael Kubovy <kubovy at virginia.edu> wrote:
> Hi Spencer,
> 
> In an Sweave script, which would take me too long to boil down to a reproducible example, lme4 was loaded before effects, and a calculation involving the effect() function failed. This was remedied by following John's advice and loading the two packages in the order he recommended at the beginning of the run. The problem went away.
> 
> As far as I can tell, no such warning was issued, or at least none was noticed by me, because I'm caching many computations, which may hide warnings. 
> 
> MK
> 
> On Mar 8, 2012, at 10:29 AM, Spencer Graves wrote:
> 
> > Dear John, et al.:
> > 
> > 
> >      What happens if lme4 is loaded before the effect package?
> > 
> > 
> >      Is this an issue of a user wanting to use two different packages with potentially conflicting names?  What are the standard recommendations for handling issues like this?  Just to test my comprehension, I assume that the key is that users should routinely watch for warnings of name conflicts and follow the advice of sect. "1.6.1 Specifying imports and exports" of "Writing R Extensions" when that occurs?  (This is another reason for writing R packages and using namespaces, so users can record appropriately what they want in situations like this and not have to worry about name conflicts later?)
> > 
> > 
> >      Thanks,
> >      Spencer
> > 
> > 
> > On 3/8/2012 4:19 AM, Michael Kubovy wrote:
> >> Dear John,
> >> 
> >> Thanks for the quick response. It works perfectly.
> >> 
> >> Michael
> >> 
> >> On Mar 7, 2012, at 9:19 PM, John Fox wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Dear Michael,
> >>> 
> >>> effect() works with lmer(). Just load lme4 after the effect package. See the penultimate example in ?effect.
> >>> 
> >>> I hope this helps,
> >>> John
> >>> 
> >>> ------------------------------------------------
> >>> John Fox
> >>> Sen. William McMaster Prof. of Social Statistics
> >>> Department of Sociology
> >>> McMaster University
> >>> Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
> >>> http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/
> >>> 
> >>> On Wed, 7 Mar 2012 20:53:20 -0500
> >>> Michael Kubovy<kubovy at virginia.edu>  wrote:
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>> 
> >>>> I would like to use the effect() function (actually a slightly modified version of it) on the output of the lmer() function in the lme4 package. But the effects package requires the nlme pacvkage, which is incompatible with lme4. Workaround?
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> Professor Michael Kubovy
> >> University of Virginia
> >> Department of Psychology
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> >> 
> >> 
> >> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >> 
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> >> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> >> 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
> > President and Chief Technology Officer
> > Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
> > 751 Emerson Ct.
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> > ph:  408-655-4567
> > web:  www.structuremonitoring.com
> > 
> 
> ______________________________________________
> Professor Michael Kubovy
> University of Virginia
> Department of Psychology
> for mail add:						for FedEx or UPS add: 
> P.O.Box 400400					Gilmer Hall, Room 102
> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400	485 McCormick Road
> USA							Charlottesville, VA 22903
> 		room	phone
> Office:    B011	+1-434-982-4729
> Lab:        B019	+1-434-982-4751
> WWW:    http://www.people.virginia.edu/~mk9y/
>