function remains loaded in the search space after detaching the package

I ran into some very irritating behaviour I don't understand.  Let me
illustrate with the package gdata() and the function
print.object_size() :

print(object.size(iris),units='Kb')

6.3 Kb

getAnywhere(print.object_size)

A single object matching ?print.object_size? was found
It was found in the following places
  registered S3 method for print from namespace utils
  namespace:utils
with value
...

All is well. So now I load gdata

require(gdata)

Loading required package: gdata
...
The following object(s) are masked from ?package:utils?:

    object.size

OK, this is what I would expect:

print(object.size(iris),units='Kb')

[1] 6424

getAnywhere(print.object_size)

2 differing objects matching ?print.object_size? were found
in the following places
  registered S3 method for print from namespace utils
  namespace:gdata
  namespace:utils
Use [] to view one of them

Now I detach gdata again

detach(package:gdata)

But the function print.object_size is still the default for object_size objects!

print(object.size(iris),units='Kb')

[1] 6424

And it can still be found as well:

getAnywhere(print.object_size)

2 differing objects matching ?print.object_size? were found
in the following places
  registered S3 method for print from namespace utils
  namespace:gdata
  namespace:utils
Use [] to view one of them

Am I missing something?

Cheers
Joris

Joris Meys
Statistical consultant

Ghent University
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Department of Mathematical Modelling, Statistics and Bio-Informatics

tel : +32 9 264 59 87
Joris.Meys at Ugent.be
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