Dear list! I develop a package for R and wonder how I can best define package-wide constants (both character strings or named vectors of strings) which are used throughout different classes and methods. I'm new to R and wonder if there is some kind of “best practice” that I just haven't read of yet. My main programming language is Java, so if that helps anyone to understand my thinking: I mean values that I would normally put into a class like Constants.java as “public static final” variables, or into a .properties file.
A concrete example: I deal with XML files, both parsing and encoding. Right now I have several classes representing documents which I handle, and in each of the encoding methods there is a character string for the schema location. If I want to change that location then I have to change it several times (neglecting search and replace), but I'd rather have a single point of change for that. I've read documentation on environments, "<<-" and the "assign" function, BUT am still not sure how to approach my problem BEST. "assign" could most probably do the job, but do I use/create a certain environment (like "myConstants")? Or should I just use my package's environment? Thanks for any experiences, (alternative) ideas, or pointers at existing discussions! Regards, Daniel ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
