README.md

In chatchavan/cleanslate: Clean the Interactive Environment Except Some Variables

cleanslate

Interactive data analysis in R can result in a messy environment with many temporary environment. We may want to remove most of the variables except a few, e.g., the main data table. This package provides convenient functions to keep some variables persisting in a different environment and remove others.

Installation

devtools::install_github("chatchavan/cleanslate")

Usage

Load the library.

library(cleanslate)

Suppose you have the following analysis environment.

To keep a variable, use persist():

x <- "I want to keep"
persist(x)

x is now moved from the interactive environment (.GlobalEnv) to a special environment created by this package. You can still access x, but rm(x) won't work.

If you have many other variables, there's also a function rm_all() to remove everything.

y <- 12
z <- 13
rm_all()

y # Error: object 'y' not found
x # [1] "I want to keep"

Note that if you define a new variable with the same name as the persisted variable, the new variable will mask the persisted one until it is removed.

x <- 12
x # 12

rm(x)
x # [1] "I want to keep"

This pattern is intended for temporary modification of global variables until it is not used.

Restarting R will also clear persisted variables.

chatchavan/cleanslate documentation built on May 20, 2019, 8:01 p.m.