Rscript does not load methods package, R does — why, and what are the consequences?
Just saw this: $ Rscript -e "sessionInfo()['basePkgs']" $basePkgs [1] "stats" "graphics" "grDevices" "utils" "datasets" "base" $ R --vanilla --slave -e "sessionInfo()['basePkgs']" $basePkgs [1] "stats" "graphics" "grDevices" "utils" "datasets" "methods" [7] "base" The methods package seems to be always available when running R , but not with Rscript . I suspect that this is to gain performance, but are there any practical implications besides the obvious? I'm asking because of a funny bug that is triggered by the presence or absence of the methods package. According to ?Rscript the methods