Here is a frustrating knot I am beginning to unravel.

R has a namespace structure to help reduce errors resulting from functions, methods, objects, classes having the same name from two different packages. Makes sense. Those R objects that are supposed to be available to other packages are said to be exported, and the designation of exported objects occurs in a file named NAMESPACE in the package root (no file extension).

Seems straightforward enough, right? Here’s the rub:

Not all packages available from the CRAN repository actually have a NAMESPACE file. This means the package doesn’t have a specified namespace. A package without a NAMESPACE file should really only specify the dependency using the “Depends:” field in the DESCRIPTION file, which will basically load the whole package in the background when your custom package is loaded.

A related problem arises when your package depends on another package with an extremely limited NAMESPACE file. Check the NAMESPACE file of that packages source. If it really only has a one or two “export( stuff )” fields, perhaps only a a few lines total, chances are it is not a sufficient NAMESPACE specification for you to use the “Import:” field in your DESCRIPTION file. If you do try, chances are that you will receive errors during package check or package build. If you are unsure, you can start by listing all package dependencies in the “Depends: ” field, and then move one-by-one the unsure package names to the “Imports: ” field until you are satisfied.

This issue is mentioned in the Bioconductor instructions for package developers:

http://www.bioconductor.org/developers/package-guidelines/#dependencies

It includes some useful suggestions and scenarios in addition to those listed here.

When I originally wrote this post, I suggested manually modifying your NAMESPACE file in order to get the package to build. I no longer suggest that as an option. Ideally, you will create your NAMESPACE file automagically using Roxygen, and your Import/Depends specifications as well as in-source roxygen commands (e.g. @import) will be sufficient to generate a functional NAMESPACE file that does not cause warnings or errors during package build. It can be done!  Just takes some fiddling to understand what the errors are.

Finally, in general, I agree with the Bioconductor directive that all packages have a namespace specification. A thoughtful discrimination between external and internal methods is going to be useful for long-term stability of packages, especially as the number of R packages increases. For now, NAMESPACE does not appear to be required by CRAN, but that does not mean you should not make one, nor does it mean others will not find it extremely useful!

p.s.  If you use roxygen (or roxygen2) you will need to remove/comment all import tags from your roxygen-comments related to the namespace-absent packages. Commenting-out those tags is preferable, so that function-level dependencies are still documented in the source file in Roxygen notation, which is useful for others (as well as yourself).