R devel - Jan 2003 - Rprofile.site assignments occur in base package (PR#2448)

Not sure whether this is a feature or bug -- but it does not appear to be
documented.

R1.6.1 on Windows NT 4.00.1381

Objects assigned in the Rprofile.site file (e.g. foo<-'something')
are put
into package:base not .GlobalEnv on startup. Objects assigned in the
.Rprofile file are put into .GlobalEnv. This doesn't seem consistent to me.
The objects exist in base only for the duration of the session -- they are
not written permanently (of course). Anything in the (saved) .GlobalEnv will
persist.

The workaround(?) is trivial: source() in a file with the assignments in the
Rprofile.site file. Assignments in the sourced file are done in .GlobalEnv.

Cheers,
Bert Gunter
Biometrics Research RY 84-16
Merck & Company
P.O. Box 2000
Rahway, NJ 07065-0900
Phone: (732) 594-7765
mailto: bert_gunter@merck.com

"The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific learning
process."      -- George E.P. Box





------------------------------------------------------------------------------

bert_gunter@merck.com wrote:
> Not sure whether this is a feature or bug -- but it does not appear to be
> documented.
> 
> R1.6.1 on Windows NT 4.00.1381
> 
> Objects assigned in the Rprofile.site file (e.g.
foo<-'something') are put
> into package:base not .GlobalEnv on startup. Objects assigned in the
> .Rprofile file are put into .GlobalEnv. This doesn't seem consistent to
me.
> The objects exist in base only for the duration of the session -- they are
> not written permanently (of course). Anything in the (saved) .GlobalEnv
will
> persist.

It *is* documented in, e.g., ?Rprofile:

"Then R searches for the site-wide startup profile unless the command 
line option --no-site-file was given. The name of this file is taken 
from the value of the R_PROFILE environment variable. If this variable 
is unset, the default is `$R_HOME/etc/Rprofile.site', which is used if 
it exists (which it does not in a ``factory-fresh'' installation). This 
code is loaded into package base.

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 into the user workspace."

Uwe Ligges
> The workaround(?) is trivial: source() in a file with the assignments in
the
> Rprofile.site file. Assignments in the sourced file are done in .GlobalEnv.
> 
> Cheers,
> Bert Gunter
> Biometrics Research RY 84-16
> Merck & Company
> P.O. Box 2000
> Rahway, NJ 07065-0900
> Phone: (732) 594-7765
> mailto: bert_gunter@merck.com
> 
> "The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific
learning
> process."      -- George E.P. Box