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

Put your sysdata.rda file in the data directory of your package.

Do not use Lazy Data -- your DESCRIPTION file should either not have a line for LazyData, or, if it does, it should be LazyData: no

In any .R file in the R directory of your package add a line like this

data(sysdata, envir=environment())

I created a data.frame named sysdata and saved it to a file called sysdata.rda in the data directory of a package called anRpackage

I added the above line to an .R file, and also added this unexported function just to show that functions in the package have access to the data.

foo <- function() tail(sysdata, 2)

Then I see the following an R session

> library(anRpackage)
> sysdata
Error: object 'sysdata' not found

> anRpackage:::sysdata
  A  B C
1 1  6 a
2 2  7 b
3 3  8 c
4 4  9 d
5 5 10 e

> anRpackage:::foo()
  A  B C
4 4  9 d
5 5 10 e

So, users still have access to the data, but as you requested, they do not have direct access. The user still has the option to run data(sysdata).