how do I use @importFrom so that it applies to a whole R package?

Question

automated data analysis workflows I have the following code in my packagename.R file in the packagename folder.

I know I am going to use certain functions from other packages routinely, so I want to import them once instead of typing them out all over the place. I thought I should be able to do that with the above approach, but it's not working in my RStudio.

#' packagename: Package containing tools support project work.
#'
#' This package provides a central repository for methods to facilitate 
#' project work
#' @importFrom dplyr bind_rows mutate filter group_by ungroup
#' @importFrom purrr pluck map map_chr map_dbl
#' @importFrom lubridate ymd_hms
#' @importFrom odbc odbc
#' @importFrom DBI dbConnect dbDisconnect
#' @importFrom stringr str_detect str_replace_all
#' @docType package
#' @name packagename
NULL

In another file topic.R I have:

do_thing <- function(x) str_replace_all(x, " ", "_"))

When I call do_thing it tells me:

Error in str_replace_all(x, " ", "_") : 
  could not find function "str_replace_all"

Is there something more I need to add, or perhaps should I do something differently?

Based on the comments to the question, I needed to atleast regenerate my NAMESPACE, which apparently was generated manually (since I started the project using the RStudio GUI), so roxygen wouldn't update it. I am interested in how I can do this from the UI as well.

This is what my build menu looks like:

My NAMESPACE file includes these imports but my test script still fails when trying to run the functions. Is this not possible as C. Braun suggests?

Answer 1

Although this is not a new question, it has been viewed thousands of time therefore, I guess, it should be answered.

It is not that easy to do it like that. The best way to proceed is to use the function use_import_from provided by the usethis package (included in the devtools package): usethis::use_import_from(package = "dplyr", fun = bind_rows).

This will create/append a file named mypackage-package.R where mypackage is the name of your package. Its content looks like that:

#' @keywords internal
"_PACKAGE"

## usethis namespace: start
#' @importFrom data.table :=
#' @importFrom dplyr across
#' @importFrom dplyr group_by
#' @importFrom dplyr mutate
#' @importFrom dplyr n
#' @importFrom dplyr summarise
#' @importFrom magrittr %<>%
#' @importFrom magrittr %>%
#' @importFrom stats stepfun
## usethis namespace: end
NULL

And when you load/build the package, your namespace will be updated with something like:

importFrom(data.table,":=")
importFrom(dplyr,across)
importFrom(dplyr,group_by)
importFrom(dplyr,mutate)
importFrom(dplyr,n)
importFrom(dplyr,summarise)
importFrom(magrittr,"%<>%")
importFrom(magrittr,"%>%")
importFrom(stats,stepfun)

I hope that can help you.