[R] loading .rda file

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>
>>>>>     on Tue, 30 Aug 2016 09:36:05 -0700 writes:

    > You cannot. However, you can load the file into a dedicated environment to keep those names separated from your global environment. e.g. [1]

yes, that's my "famous"  only-allowed use of  attach() :
attach() an rda-file to your search patch instead of polluting
your globalenv.

  > The saveRDS / loadRDS 

        saveRDS / readRDS   are the correct names

    > functions are an alternative handle one object at a time without dragging the object names into the picture (you have to name the re-loaded object).

The fact that it is readRDS() and not loadRDS(),
actually does convey via it is often "much better" in the sense
of functional / transparent programming to use this pair in
favor of save() / load() :
readRDS() does *return* what we are interested in, and

   result <- readRDS(<file>)

is so much better than   load(<file>)   silently overwriting all
kinds of objects in my globalenv.

Indeed, I strongly advocate to use  saveRDS() and readRDS()
much more frequently than they are used nowawadays.



    > However, the best approach is to write scripts that pull directly from your source (non-R) data files. This makes your work process reproducible as you develop it.

Yes, but that's sometimes too inefficient.

And then, some of us do simulations and other expensive
computations, we need/want to save and re-read.

and yes,  I *always*  use the equivalent of   q("no")  to leave R; 
never save the workspace or load it at startup, unless
accidentally on non-standard (for me) platforms.

Martin

    > [1] https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2016-August/441078.html
    > -- 
    > Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

    > On August 30, 2016 7:37:24 AM PDT, Leslie Rutkowski <leslie.rutkowski at gmail.com> wrote:
    >> Hi,
    >> 
    >> I'm slowly migrating from SAS to R and - for the very first time - I'm
    >> working with a native .Rda data file (rather than importing data from
    >> other
    >> sources). When I load this .Rda file into the global environment using
    >> load("file path") I see a data.frame in the global environment called
    >> "mydata" that corresponds to the .rda file.
    >> 
    >> My question: how can I change the name of this data.frame to something
    >> of
    >> my choosing?
    >> 
    >> Thanks for considering this very simple question.
    >> 
    >> Leslie
    >> 
    >> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
    >> 
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    > ______________________________________________
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    > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.