Lightweight 'package' idea.

I'm often wanting to develop functions whilst manipulating data. But I
don't want to end up with a .RData full of functions and data. It
might be that I have functions that are re-usable but not worth
sticking in a package.

?So I've tried to come up with a paradigm for function development
that more closely follows the way Matlab and Python do it (partly
inspired by a confused Matlab convert over on R-help).

?My requirements were thus:

?* .R files as the master source for R functions
?* Don't see the functions in ls()
?* After editing R, make it easy to update the definitions visible to
R (unlike rebuilding and reloading a package).

?So I wrote these two in a few mins:

loadDir <- function(dir){
?e = attach(NULL,name=dir)
?assign("__path__",dir,envir=e)
?reloadDir(e)
?e
}

reloadDir <- function(e){
?path = get("__path__",e)
?files = list.files(path,".R$",full.names=TRUE,recursive=TRUE,ignore.case=TRUE)
?for(f in files){
? ?sys.source(f,envir=e)
?}
}

?Sourcing everything on any change seems a bit wasteful, but until R
objects have timestamps I can't think of a better way. Hmm, maybe my
environment could keep a __timestamp__ object... Okay, this is getting
less simple now...