Is it a good idea or even possible to redefine attach?

That is delightful.

When I run it like this:
? Start R
? Nothing in .Rprofile
? Paste in your code
?????
? gcrenv <- new.env()
? gcrenv$attach.old <- attach
? gcrenv$attach <- function(...){stop("NEVER USE ATTACH")}
? base::attach(gcrenv, name="gcr", warn.conflicts = FALSE)
?????
? I get exactly what is expected, I think
?????
? search()
?????
?????
?  [1] ".GlobalEnv"        "gcr"               "ESSR"
?  [4] "package:stats"     "package:graphics"  "package:grDevices"
?  [7] "package:utils"     "package:datasets"  "package:methods"
? [10] "Autoloads"         "package:base"
?????

Just to be sure:
? Is that what is expected?
? I am surprised because I thought that `gcr' would come first before
  `.GlobalEnv'
  ? Perhaps I mis understand, as `.GlobalEnv' is actually the "REPL"?

My goal is to move that to my .Rprofile so that it is "always run" and I
can forget about it more or less.

Reading [this] I felt like `.First' would be the right place to put it,
but then read further to find that packages are only loaded /after/
`.First' has completed.  Curious, I tried it just to be sure. I am now
:).

This is the .Rprofile file:

?????
? cat(".Rprofile: Setting CMU repository\n")
? r = getOption("repos")
? r["CRAN"] = "http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/R/CRAN/"
? options(repos = r)
? rm(r)
?
? .First <- function() {
?    ?same code as above?
? }
?????

(I included the repository load, and understand it should not impact
things here)

This is run after normal startup of R:

?????
? search()
?????
?????
?  [1] ".GlobalEnv"        "package:stats"     "package:graphics"
?  [4] "package:grDevices" "package:utils"     "package:datasets"
?  [7] "gcr"               "package:methods"   "Autoloads"
? [10] "package:base"
?????

When I read this, I read it as:
? My rebind of `attach' occurs
? Then all of the packages are loaded and they are referring to
  my-rebound `attach'
? That is a problem because it *will* break package code
? Clearly me putting that code in `.Rprofile' is the wrong place.

What I am looking for now is the "right way" to achieve what is
demonstarted but automatically via a startup file.

My ideas:
? Manually paste the step each time
? Always use Emacs and ESS to run R and add a hook so that the code will
  be run after ESS loads
? Something I am missing


[this]
http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/Startup.html
Grant Rettke | ACM, ASA, FSF, IEEE, SIAM
gcr at wisdomandwonder.com | http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/
?Wisdom begins in wonder.? --Socrates
((? (x) (x x)) (? (x) (x x)))
?Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop
taking it seriously.? --Thompson

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 1:49 PM, Grant Rettke <gcr at wisdomandwonder.com> wrote:

Hi,

Today I got curious about whether or not I /could/ remove `attach' from
my system so:
- Backed it up
- Implemented a new one
- Like this

,----
| attach.old <<- attach
| attach <<- function(...) {stop("NEVER USE ATTACH")}
`----

I got the error:

,----
| Error: cannot change value of locked binding for 'attach'
`----

If I unlock `attach' I assume that I could stomp on it... however is
that even a good idea?

What will I break?

If you change the base package environment's copy of `attach` (via
`as.environment('package:base')`) , probably not much will break,
except for your own code. If, on the other hand, you change the base
namespace's copy of `attach` (via `asNamespace('base')`, any package
that's subsequently loaded and uses `attach` would run into problems.
Still, either way is probably not a good idea.

I agree with Ista: assigning it yourself in the the global environment
is a better idea. If you want to keep your global env clear of stuff
like this, you can put it in an environment and attach that
environment as a parent of global:

e <- new.env()
e$attach <-  function(...) {stop("NEVER USE ATTACH")}
base::attach(e, name = "my_stuff", warn.conflicts = FALSE)

# Test it out:
attach()

# You can see that the "my_stuff" env is the parent of global env
search()


-Winston