[R] namespaces

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 11:26 AM, Alexy Khrabrov <deliverable at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, I could prefix everything with taskN$, but that's boring!  Can I now
> attach and detach tasks to have one prefix-less, since they look like
> dataframes?

Read the proto vignette and other info to get a better understanding
of the prototype model
of object oriented programming.  See the home page at
http://r-proto.googlecode.com

Certainly one can attach and detach objects although its not clear
whether that is
desirable or its effect on delegation/inheritance (if you use those
facilities).  If you
are going to use them simply as modules then it would likely be ok:

attach(task1)
var
detach(task1)

> What does proto buy us?

What do namespaces buy us?  Namespaces are environments and so
are proto objects.  proto objects give you the facitilites of object oriented
programming including delegation (like inheritance) although based on
your description you only intend to  use them as modules (but if you
think about your modules as objects the OO approach might further simplify
and organize your project).

>
> To respond to Uwe here as well, I want dynamic task switching and *also* an
> ability to load and save task from their workspaces into their namespaces in
> the same R session.
>
> Cheers,
> Alexy
>
> On Oct 2, 2008, at 11:19 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>
>> You could have an environment for each task and place your objects for
>> each task in its environment.
>>
>> Note that this is getting close to object oriented ideas where each
>> enviroment/task
>> is an object containing your R variables and methods and the proto package
>> can be used to facilitate that:
>>
>> library(proto)
>> task1 <- proto(var = 0, addx = function(this, x) this$var <- this$var + x)
>> task1$var # 0
>> task1$addx(3)
>> task1$var # 3
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Alexy Khrabrov <deliverable at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I'd like to control my namespace thoroughly, separated by task.  Is there
>>> a
>>> way, in R session, to introduce namespaces for tasks dynamically and
>>> switch
>>> them as needed?  Or, is there a combination of load/save workspace steps
>>> which can facilitate this?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Alexy
>>>
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>
>