How to load only specific functions from a package

Question

I have a package that uses the trim() function in the gdata package. I literally use nothing else from the package and (as some of you may have seen) it overwrites some functionality of base R that I need.

Is there a way to load only one function rather than the whole package?

Answer 1

Sure. Just use an importFrom directive in your NAMESPACE file (as described here in R-exts).

importFrom(gdata, trim)

---

OP EDIT: As of R 3.2.0 there's now a base function: trimws()