[R] defaults in R: packages, .Rhistory

[Prof Brian Ripley]

Please use a parseable subject line, or two separate messages for two 
unrelated Qs.

On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, Jacob Wegelin wrote:

> With the current version (rw1070), every time I start R it loads a whole
> bunch of packages, many of which I do not need in a typical session:
> 
> > search()
> [1] ".GlobalEnv"      "package:methods" "package:ctest"   "package:mva"
> [5] "package:modreg"  "package:nls"     "package:ts"      "Autoloads"
> [9] "package:base"
> 
> Loading all these packages makes R slow to start up, and I presume it
> uses up memory too.

Not much memory, and it is only methods which adds appreciable slowness.

> Is there a reason that all these packages load automatically? 

Yes.  (You didn't ask what it was.)

> Is
> there some way to stop this from happening, by changing some default?

Yes, and that is in the CHANGES file: please read it.


> A separate question also related to defaults:
> 
> Is there a way to get R to refrain from truncating the .Rhistory file
> (removing the earliest saved commands), so that .Rhistory might serve
> as a permanent record of every command issued?

Not in RGui, *but* you can change the buffer size in the Rconsole file
or the Preferences.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595