R devel - Jul 2013 - "Proper" way to use a "hidden" function in an R-package?

R-developers:

I'm working on updating my R package "spatial.tools", and one
thing I
was wondering was the proper way to have hidden functions -- should I
simply not export them to the namespace and use the ::: operator to
call them (which is what I currently do)?

--j

--
Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD
Assistant Professor
Global Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS) Laboratory
Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
607 South Mathews Avenue, MC 150
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-300-1924
http://www.geog.illinois.edu/~jgrn/
AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307, Skype: jgrn3007

On 13-07-12 5:52 PM, Jonathan Greenberg wrote:
> R-developers:
>
> I'm working on updating my R package "spatial.tools", and one
thing I
> was wondering was the proper way to have hidden functions -- should I
> simply not export them to the namespace and use the ::: operator to
> call them (which is what I currently do)?
Are you calling them from inside the package?  If so, you don't need the 
:::.

If you're not calling them from inside the package, then why not export 
them?  I think you need to explain the context.

Duncan Murdoch
>
> --j
>
> --
> Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> Global Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS) Laboratory
> Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> 607 South Mathews Avenue, MC 150
> Urbana, IL 61801
> Phone: 217-300-1924
> http://www.geog.illinois.edu/~jgrn/
> AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307, Skype: jgrn3007
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

I think part of this may be my (possibly flawed) understanding of
documentation requirements for CRAN -- if a function is exported to
the namespace, does CRAN require documentation of that function?  The
reason I ask is that I have a lot of these little functions that have
no need for documentation (since they are only used internally by a
larger, documented function -- no end-user would touch them).  If this
is flawed understanding, do I just export it to the NAMESPACE and I'm
good to go?

--j

On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Duncan Murdoch
<murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13-07-12 5:52 PM, Jonathan Greenberg wrote:
>> R-developers:
>>
>> I'm working on updating my R package "spatial.tools", and
one thing I
>> was wondering was the proper way to have hidden functions -- should I
>> simply not export them to the namespace and use the ::: operator to
>> call them (which is what I currently do)?
>
> Are you calling them from inside the package?  If so, you don't need
the
> :::.
>
> If you're not calling them from inside the package, then why not export
> them?  I think you need to explain the context.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
>>
>> --j
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD
>> Assistant Professor
>> Global Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS) Laboratory
>> Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science
>> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>> 607 South Mathews Avenue, MC 150
>> Urbana, IL 61801
>> Phone: 217-300-1924
>> http://www.geog.illinois.edu/~jgrn/
>> AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307, Skype:
jgrn3007
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>>
>


-- 
Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD
Assistant Professor
Global Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS) Laboratory
Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
607 South Mathews Avenue, MC 150
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: 217-300-1924
http://www.geog.illinois.edu/~jgrn/
AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307, Skype: jgrn3007