Double Colon and Triple Colon Operators

Description

Accessing exported and internal variables in a namespace.

Usage

pkg::name
pkg:::name

Arguments

Details

For a package pkg, pkg::name returns the value of the exported variable name in namespace pkg, whereas pkg:::name returns the value of the internal variable name. The namespace will be loaded if it was not loaded before the call, but the package will not be attached to the search path.

Specifying a variable or package that does not exist is an error.

Note that pkg::name does not access the objects in the environment package:pkg (which does not exist until the package's namespace is attached): the latter may contain objects not exported from the namespace. As from R 2.14.0 it can access datasets made available by lazy-loading.

Note

It is typically a design mistake to use ::: in your code since the corresponding object has probably been kept internal for a good reason. Consider contacting the package maintainer if you feel the need to access the object for anything but mere inspection.

See Also

get to access an object masked by another of the same name.

Examples

base::log
base::"+"

## Beware --  use ':::' at your own risk! (see "Details")
stats:::coef.default