[R] get() versus getAnywhere()

Benjamin Tyner btyner at gmail.com
Fri Apr 17 00:46:26 CEST 2009


Many thanks Duncan. Perhaps this merits a more explicit note in the 
documentation?

Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 4/16/2009 9:52 AM, Benjamin Tyner wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> Using R 2.8.1. I have list object called "AuxData". Inside a browser(),
>>
>>    get("AuxData")
>>
>> succeeds, while
>>
>>    getAnywhere("AuxData")
>>
>> fails with the error "no object named âAuxDataâ was found". I'm
>> curious to know if this could be a bug. If yes, I'll try to come up
>> with a reproducible example.
>
> It's not a bug.  getAnywhere doesn't really mean "anywhere", it means 
> "visible on the search path, registered as an S3 method or in a name 
> space but not exported."  On the other hand, the browser will show you 
> the local evaluation frame.  So I'd expect the browser to be able to 
> see x below, but getAnywhere wouldn't find it, because it's not in one 
> of the places listed above.
>
> f <- function(x) {
>   browser()
>   getAnywhere("x")
> }
>
> f(1)




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