[R-pkg-devel] Building my R package: issue when importing two functions with the same name

[Uwe Ligges]

... and even if you are importing from several packages, you should 
import selective via importFrom directoves.

If you need two functions with identical names, import at most one of 
them and rather use pkg::foo syntax to access them.

Best,
Uwe Ligges





On 07.08.2018 10:14, Iñaki Úcar wrote:
> El mar., 7 ago. 2018 a las 9:32, Gianmarco Alberti
> (<gianmarcoalberti using gmail.com>) escribió:
>>
>> I am building a R package, and I am facing an issue caused (as far as I understand) by the fact that some functions out of my package rely on two fuctions having the same name and coming from 2 different packages:
>>
>> pROC::roc
>> spatstat::roc
>>
>> When checking the package via devtools::check(), I get the following warning:
>>
>> Warning: replacing previous import ‘spatstat::roc’ by ‘pROC::roc’ when loading ‘GmAMisc’
>>
>> Note that both packages are listed among the Imports in my package's DESCRIPTION file, and that (within my functions) I have actually used spatstat::roc and pROC::roc where needed.
> 
> I see:
> 
> Depends: R (>= 3.4.0), ggplot2, ggrepel, rgdal, rgeos, raster, sp,
> spatstat, maptools, spatialEco, dismo, pROC, kimisc, corrplot,
> InPosition, lsr, gridExtra, caTools, plyr, classInt, coin, DescTools,
> rWind, shape, rworldmap, cluster, RcmdrMisc, gdistance, Hmisc
> 
> In general, it is not a good idea to depend on so many packages,
> because what "Depends" do is to load and attach packages. Among other
> issues, there is one that you are already experimenting: "roc" is
> exported both by "spatstat" and "pROC", so one masks the other.
> 
> The solution is to list them under "Imports" instead of "Depends". In
> fact, my advice is to put as many packages as possible under
> "Imports". Keep in "Depends" only those you would load and attach
> anyway when working with your package, because you need all the
> functions along with the ones your package exports. For the rest of
> them, just use them as package::function to avoid this kind of
> problem, and reexport functions selectively if needed.
> 
> Iñaki
> 
> PS: I'm taking a look at other packages and I see that you always use
> "Depends" and never "Imports". My general advice is against this
> practice. Moreover, from the "Writing R Extensions" manual:
> 
> "Field ‘Depends’ should nowadays be used rarely, only for packages
> which are intended to be put on the search path to make their
> facilities available to the end user (and not to the package itself):
> for example it makes sense that a user of package 'latticeExtra' would
> want the functions of package 'lattice' made available."
> 
>>
>> I have done some web-search but I could not locate any workaround that actually fixes my issue.
>>
>> Do you have any suggestion on the matter?
>>
>> **************************************
>> Dr Gianmarco Alberti (PhD)
>> (currently)
>> Research Support Officer II
>> Department of Classics and Archaeology
>> Faculty of Arts
>> University of Malta
>>
>> (starting from 3rd September 2018)
>> Lecturer in Spatial Forensics
>> Department of Criminology
>> Faculty for Social Wellbeing
>> University of Malta
>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gianmarco_Alberti4
>> http://cainarchaeology.weebly.com/
>> **************************************
>>
>>
>>          [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
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