Abstract
You now know how to write functions and create classes in R, but neither functions nor classes is the unit you use for collecting and distributing R code. That unit is the package.
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Notes
- 1.
man stands for manual and the abbreviation man is a legacy from UNIX.
- 2.
e.g., vignettes/ for documentation vignettes, data/ for data you want to include with your package, and src/ for C/C++ extensions.
- 3.
CRAN is the official depository for R package and the place where the install.packages function finds them.
- 4.
There are a few more fields, such as for linking to external C/C++ code, but these three fields are the most important ones.
- 5.
Strictly speaking, this is not true. You can actually get to internal functions if you use the ::: operator instead of the :: operator. So if function_name is not exported but still implemented in the test package, you can access it with test:::function_name. But you shouldn’t. You should keep your damned dirty paws away from internal functions!
- 6.
It is also used to import selected functions or packages, but using Roxygen’s @import and @importFrom functions are better solutions for that.
- 7.
Except through the ::: operator, of course, but people who use this to access the internals of your package knows – or should know – that they are accessing implementation details that could change in the future so it is their own fault if their code is broken sometime down the line.
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© 2017 Thomas Mailund
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Mailund, T. (2017). Building an R Package. In: Beginning Data Science in R. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-2671-1_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-2671-1_11
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