From deepayan at stat.wisc.edu  Thu Aug 12 16:42:20 2004
From: deepayan at stat.wisc.edu (Deepayan Sarkar)
Date: Thu Aug 12 16:42:35 2004
Subject: [Rd] The Depends: field of a package is now used by library()
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0408121322180.16170-100000@gannet.stats>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0408121322180.16170-100000@gannet.stats>
Message-ID: <200408120942.20270.deepayan@stat.wisc.edu>

On Thursday 12 August 2004 07:34, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> In R-devel, the Depends: field in the DESCRIPTION file is now used by
> library() to load the named packages before the current package, and
> also to set up the environment to save images and prepare for lazy
> loading.

How would this relate to namespaces? For instance, lattice imports grid 
(and a few things from stats and graphics). If I keep grid in the 
depends field, loading lattice does a require(grid), which defeats one 
of the purposes of having namespaces. If I leave it out, nothing bad 
seems to happen as long as grid is installed, but there should be some 
indication in the DESCRIPTION that that grid is a requirement. None of 
the other fields seem appropriate.

Deepayan


[Rd] The Depends: field of a package is now used by library()
Deepayan Sarkar