ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
2004-Oct-23 18:43 UTC
[Rd] Re: (PR#7304) library.dynam() & .dynLibs() do not work as
Filing on R-bugs (DTL's reply started a new PR). -- Brian D. Ripley, ripley@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 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 17:30:13 +0100 (BST) From: Prof Brian Ripley <ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk> To: Duncan Temple Lang <duncan@wald.ucdavis.edu> Cc: R-devel@r-project.org Subject: [Rd] Re: library.dynam() & .dynLibs() do not work as documented Duncan, I don't know what we want, but it is not a simple matter of documenting what .dynLibs currently does. What I see as bugs are 1) the inconsistent names and types of the components returned by .dynLibs(). 2) the inconsistent inclusion or not of R_X11 in the list returned by .dynLibs(). 3) the inclusion of static info (base) by library.dynam(). 4) including loadable modules such as R_X11. 5) the documentation needs updating. Having .dynLibs() give a list of DLLinfo objects about DLLs loaded by packages, and summarizing those in library.dynam() is my current best suggestion. That implies leaving out base and R_X11. I intended> > nor in any sensible way we could document.to indicate that the current documentation was not a good option. Brian On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Duncan Temple Lang wrote:> Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > > nor in any sensible way we could document. > > > > In R 2.0.0 (and current R-patched and R-devel): > > > > > X11() > > > library.dynam() > > Filename Dynamic.Lookup > > base base FALSE > > stats /usr/local/lib/R/library/stats/libs/stats.so TRUE > > methods /usr/local/lib/R/library/methods/libs/methods.so TRUE > > R_X11 /usr/local/lib/R/modules/R_X11.so TRUE > > > > whereas 1.9.1 gives > > > > > library.dynam() > > [1] "stats" "methods" > > > > and the documentation says > > > > If 'chname' is not specified, 'library.dynam' returns a character > > vector with the names of packages which have used it in the > > current R session to load shared libraries. This vector is > > returned as 'invisible', unless the 'chname' argument is missing. > > > > which is clearly no longer true. I don't see why we want loaded modules > > in there that have nothing to do with packages, or even non-modules. > > > Before we try to simply match documentation which was written for > a simpler semantic, let's think about what we actually require > in the context of versioned packages and where library.dynam() > is currently being used and so what is broken. > > Returning a character vector with the names of packages which have used it > does not permit version information to be included (unless they are in the > package name). > > For quite some time, I have wanted to move to package objects > and to return such self-describing objects which contain all > their own details such as name, version, DLL, etc. Using names, > just as using numbers of graphics devices, is a global mechanism > that leads to clumsy code. > > We can make the code match the documentation, but only if > we still want what the documentation states. > When we introduce multiple evaluators in the future, > lots of things will "challenge" the current semantics > and many of them will be desirable. One of these potential changes > is the use of multiple concurrent versions of a package. > > Comments, before we fix things? > > D. > > > > > At that point .dynLibs() gave > > > > $base > > DLL name: base > > Filename: base > > Dynamic lookup: FALSE > > > > $stats > > DLL name: stats > > Filename: /usr/local/lib/R/library/stats/libs/stats.so > > Dynamic lookup: TRUE > > > > [[3]] > > [1] "methods" > > > > which seems useless for > > > > '.dynLibs' is used for getting or setting the packages that have > > loaded shared libraries (using 'library.dynam'). > > > > One command later and we have > > > > > library(MASS) > > > .dynLibs() > > $base > > DLL name: base > > Filename: base > > Dynamic lookup: FALSE > > > > $stats > > DLL name: stats > > Filename: /usr/local/lib/R/library/stats/libs/stats.so > > Dynamic lookup: TRUE > > > > $methods > > DLL name: methods > > Filename: /usr/local/lib/R/library/methods/libs/methods.so > > Dynamic lookup: TRUE > > > > $R_X11 > > DLL name: R_X11 > > Filename: /usr/local/lib/R/modules/R_X11.so > > Dynamic lookup: TRUE > > > > [[5]] > > [1] "MASS" > > > > ! > > > > -- > > Brian D. Ripley, ripley@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 > >-- Brian D. Ripley, ripley@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 ______________________________________________ R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
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