How do you handle R Data internal to a package?

Question

The R package I am developing requires several R data objects, such as pre-computed models and parameters.

Currently I have each object in the \'data\' directory of the

Answer 1

You can use the .onLoad() hook to call data() when your package is being loaded, and specify the package namespace as the environment where to load the data objects into.

Assuming you have files model1.R and mydata.RData in the data/ directory of your package called foopkg, define the function

.onLoad <- function(libname, pkgname) {
  data("model1", "mydata", package=pkgname, envir=parent.env(environment()))
}

somewhere in your package (e.g. in foopkg-package.R).

After building and installing the package,

> library(foopkg)
> ls(loadNamespace("foopkg")) 

should demonstrate that the various data objects were successfully loaded into the package namespace, i.e. visible to functions in your package but not polluting the global environment.