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4 messages · Kurt Hornik, Paul Gilbert, Philippe Lambert

#
I have some data files with my library which are used for examples and testing
the code. To date I have kept them in a subdirectory I called ../dse/dsedata,
but I am trying to move those to .../dse/data as perscribed for installing
libraries. However, these datasets are not all R object, some are just files
that I source from within a function, and one is accessed by a separate process
that I call from R.

1/ Should the data subdirectory be reserved for R objects?

2/ Could someone explain or point me to were I can find the explanation of how R
objects in this data subdirectory should be constructed? Are these objects
automatically loaded when a library is loaded?

3/ To date I have been able to find my subdirectory by setting a variable
indicating its location in the library file from which code is loaded.
Admittedly this was a kludge, but I could do it because I had my own make which
embedded the location in the file when it was installed. I was not very happy
with this trick, but it seems I completely lose this ability using R INSTALL.
loaded or after it is loaded?

Paul Gilbert

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#
Official R speak actually is `package' for what you call `library'.
No.  You can have data of any kind ther.  However, currently data() only
works for R objects, i.e., files with R code and names ending in `.R'.
Within soon, this should be extended so that e.g. `.tab' is using for
tables (and we still have to determine how to treat headers ...).
No, they are not loaded automatically.  Currently, there is (still) no
way to attach a directory.  This will change eventually.

If you build a package for use with R and there is no reason to store
data in a specific format, you might as well try to dump() your object
and put the result of that into the data dir of the pkg (thus you'd have
sourceable R code etc.)  If you want to distribute something in some
other format, e.g. `file.of', then `file.R' should contain the R code
for reading the contents of `file.of' into R.
Not quite.  There is a function called system.file() which does
something similar:

R> system.file("R/base")
[1] "/usr/local/lib/R/library/base/R/base"
R> system.file("data/index.doc")
[1] "/usr/local/lib/R/library/base/data/index.doc"
[1] "/usr/local/lib/R/library/base/data/index.doc"

Would it be important to know the location of a package?

-k
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#
Yes, I forgot, sorry.
Thanks for all the other details.
Probably not for the code, but if I put data in .../dse/data then I need to know
where it is in order to load it (and sometimes to pass the location to other
processes to load it). The way I've done this in S is to set a global variable
in .First.lib using the library and section arguments, but I don't think this is
available in R yet.

Paul


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#
What about files ending in .r?
(= result of copying a .R file on a dos formatted floppy disk).
Will they be recognized as R code files?
I have already mentioned this problem a few days ago, but there has not
been any reaction.

Thanks,
 Philippe

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