[Rd] wishlist: I miss Frame 0 (PR#1557)

[mark.bravington@csiro.au]

Full_Name: Mark Bravington
Version: R 1.3.1 + 
OS: Windows 2000
Submission from: (NULL) (140.79.2.3)


In the process of part-switching from S to R, one thing I find myself missing
greatly is S's Frame 0 feature. This is a very convenient place to put
session-level stuff, and to make temporary copies of things (e.g. system
functions) without overwriting the "real" objects lower down the search path.
The operation of Frame 0 is that it is searched during lookup before .GlobalEnv
and the rest of the search path, but it is NOT assigned to unless specified
explicitly in "assign". It seems to me that it would be simple to add this
feature in R. One particular area where it would be useful: I have a debugger
for S, which makes a modified copy of the debuggee function in frame 0. This
means that the original isn't modified. In the R version of the debugger, I have
to overwrite the original function, and there is a risk that I'll call
"save.image" or similar with the modified debug version being saved
inadvertently, losing the original copy.

Another thing I like to do with Frame 0, is to put session-level info in there
(general info for the debugger, information I use for project organization,
etc.). In R, I have to stuff all this into a list somewhere down the search
path, and I guess other people who need this facility have to create their own
equivalents. Having a shared Frame 0 at the top of the search path, would be
much nicer.

NB that I don't like S's Frame 1, and am happy to see the back of that one!

Any chance of getting Frame 0 back? I don't think it would disturb normal
operations unless people WANT to use it-- it's impossible of "accidentally"
putting things there.

cheers
Mark




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