From ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk  Wed Feb 12 18:05:05 2014
From: ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk (Prof Brian Ripley)
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:05:05 +0000
Subject: [Rd] path.package() versus system.file() for locating installed
 package folders
In-Reply-To: <0E72299F-E12F-4B64-8399-96B960E12A6C@me.com>
References: <0E72299F-E12F-4B64-8399-96B960E12A6C@me.com>
Message-ID: <52FBA9C1.9020707@stats.ox.ac.uk>

On 12/02/2014 16:28, Marc Schwartz wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> For several years, I have used path.package() to get the path to Perl scripts contained within WriteXLS.
>
> I have a request to change this to using system.file(), which would provide the ability to utilize WriteXLS functionality, without having to load the package, which path.package() requires.
>
> Based upon my review of the code, I don't see any obvious down sides to making the change, but wanted to solicit comments from anyone that might challenge the change in the code.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Regards,
>
> Marc Schwartz

I don't think path.package() ever was the right tool: find.package() 
looks a closer match, and system.file() is a wrapper for it (which was 
all that was made available for many years: up to R 2.13.0 AFAIR).

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595



[Rd] path.package() versus system.file() for locating installed package folders
Prof Brian Ripley