R devel - Apr 2000 - options(keep.source = TRUE) -- also for "library(.)" ?

help(options)

contains

    keep.source: When `TRUE', the default, the source code for functions
	      loaded by is stored in their `"source"' attribute, allowing
	      comments to be kept in the right places.  
	      This does not apply to functions loaded by `library'.
	      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and R behaves as documented, i.e., currently
all functions in package:base and all "interactively defined"
functions
keep their source (__including__ comments) with them, whereas all the other
functions do not.

As I tend to create small own packages more and more, and ask others to use
them, users of the packages (and myself) are suffering increasingly from
function definitions with lost comments. 

Can we [those of us who know how sys.source() works...]
think of changing this?  As it was possible for the base package, it must
be doable for the others as well....

Martin
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Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch> writes:
> Can we [those of us who know how sys.source() works...]
> think of changing this?  As it was possible for the base package, it must
> be doable for the others as well....
Martin, surely you could have figured out to remove these two lines
from sys.source:

    oop <- options(keep.source = FALSE)
    on.exit(options(oop))

The real question is whether we want to have a different mechanism for
controlling whether keep.source is set or not. Originally it was FALSE
for the base library to save space, and according the same setting was
used for other libraries since some of them are rather large, but
later it got flipped to TRUE for base, and then there is little point
in setting it FALSE for packages. Question is whether anyone would
want the old behaviour back to get more space for analyses?

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
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