Re: [O] [PATCH] read.table in variable transfer caused sometimes "function not found" error - small change

[Charles C. Berry]

On Mon, 6 Oct 2014, Rainer M Krug wrote:

> Hi
>
> The variable transfer of tables from org to R caused sometimes 'could
> not find function "read.table"' errors (e.g. when the file was tangled
> into a ./data directory which was loaded by the function
> devtools::load_all("./")). This can easily be fixed by adding the package
> name to the call in R, i.e. replacing =read.table()= with
> =utils::read.table()= which is done in this patch.

It does fix that one case.

But I wonder if that is the best way.

The heart of the matter is that load_all eventually calls sys.source, 
which can be persnickety about finding objects on the search path. See 
?sys.source.

If the src block you tangle to ./data/ has any code that uses any other 
objects from utils, stats, datasets or whatever, you will be in the 
same pickle.

Arguably, this is a bug in devtools::load_data. And maybe it would be 
better to beg the maintainer for a fix or an extension that accomodates 
your case.

> In R the calls read.table and utils::read.table are interchangeable (the
> second one is actually preferred) so no negative effects can be
> expected.

What if the user has intentionally masked read.table or the 
eventual package provides its own read.table?

HTH,

Chuck