"import as" in R

Question

Is there a way to import a package with another name in R, the way you might with import as in Python, e.g. import numpy as np? I've been starting to use package::function lately to avoid conflicts between, say, Hmisc::summarize and plyr::summarize.

I'd like to be able to instead write h::summarize and p::summarize, respectively. Is this possible in R?

Answer 1

This is not quite what you want because it involves changing from :: notation to $ notation, but if you load a package namespace (without attaching it), you can then refer to it by its environment name:

h <- loadNamespace('Hmisc') p <- loadNamespace('plyr')  > summarize(iris$Sepal.Length, iris$Species, FUN=mean) Error: could not find function "summarize"  > Hmisc::summarize(iris$Sepal.Length, iris$Species, FUN=mean)   iris$Species iris$Sepal.Length 1       setosa             5.006 2   versicolor             5.936 3    virginica             6.588  > h$summarize(iris$Sepal.Length, iris$Species, FUN=mean)   iris$Species iris$Sepal.Length 1       setosa             5.006 2   versicolor             5.936 3    virginica             6.588  > summarise(iris, x = mean(Sepal.Length)) Error: could not find function "summarise"  > plyr::summarise(iris, x = mean(Sepal.Length))          x 1 5.843333  > p$summarise(iris, x = mean(Sepal.Length))          x 1 5.843333 

Note, however, that you do lose access to documentation files using the standard ? notation (e.g., ? p$summarise does not work). So, it will serve you well as shorthand, but may not be great for interactive use since you'll still have to resort to ? plyr::summarise for that.

Note also that you do not have access to the data objects stored in the package using this approach.