save/load and package namespaces

Could someone explain to me what namespaces are loaded/saved when objects
are saved?

None are loaded or saved when you save the object, but the names of some 
are saved.  For example,

library(Hmisc)  # not normally loaded/attached
x <- zoom # copy a function from Hmisc
save(x, file="x.RData")

This will save a copy of a function from Hmisc to the file, but the 
function's environment is the Hmisc namespace.  To properly load that 
function via

load("x.RData")

R will load the referenced namespace.  You will see it appear in 
loadedNamespaces() after the load (assuming you still have Hmisc available).

I believe this will also happen if you try to load an S4 object; you'll 
need to be able to load the namespace of its class.

Duncan Murdoch

Specifically, I'm using this:
  save(list = ls(all.names = TRUE, envir = envir), file = name, envir =
envir)
to save out everything from an environment.

Later, loading it on another machine, I'm surprised to see the load failing
for being unable to load certain packages.  Could anyone help me understand
why this happens?
Jamie Olson

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