From J.C.Rougier@durham.ac.uk  Mon Apr  9 14:37:33 2001
From: J.C.Rougier@durham.ac.uk (Jonathan Rougier)
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 14:37:33 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Rd] Detaching "ctest"
In-Reply-To: <15057.44851.453347.367801@mithrandir.hornik.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.20.0104091419000.13680-100000@laplace>

On Mon, 9 Apr 2001, Kurt Hornik wrote:

> >>>>> Jonathan Rougier writes:

> > OK! if you put it like that, then I think that .First should
> definitely > *not* be used for package set-up, as it prevents
> .Rprofile commands from > being the last things executed before the
> prompt, and thus removes > "complete user control" of the set-up.
> 
> Not sure if I understand this.
> 
> Upon startup,
> 
>    * Then, unless `--no-init-file' was given, R searches for a file
>      called `.Rprofile' in the current directory or in the user's home
>      directory (in that order) and sources it.
> 
>    * It also loads a saved image from `.RData' if there is one (unless
>      `--no-restore' or `--no-restore-data' was specified).
> 
>    * Finally, if a function `.First' exists, it is executed.  This
>      function (as well as `.Last' which is executed at the end of the R
>      session) can be defined in the appropriate startup profiles, or
>      reside in `.RData'.
> 
> as per R-intro, so the user has perfect control over what happens by
> providing a suitable .First in e.g. his ~/.Rprofile.

You are right -- I was discounting the "inelegant" use of an empty .First
in .Rprofile to mask the one defined in the global environment.  I have
approached this in terms of preventing an unwanted package from being
loaded, but I can see the advantages of using a .First definition in the
user's .Rprofile to explicitly load packages as well.  I guess my worry
would be that as the core of R gets smaller and more packages are added to
the default list it would be simpler for the user to remove the one or two
packages that are not wanted, rather than having to specify explicitly in
a .First all the packages that are required, as would be the case
currently.

Cheers, Jonathan.

Jonathan Rougier                       Science Laboratories
Department of Mathematical Sciences    South Road
University of Durham                   Durham DH1 3LE
tel: +44 (0)191 374 2361, fax: +44 (0)191 374 7388
http://www.maths.dur.ac.uk/stats/people/jcr/jcr.html


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[Rd] Detaching "ctest"
Jonathan Rougier