Using Libraries in S-Plus

S-Plus stores a number of "objects", including samples and data, in a system of libraries. All objects are stored in binary format and can only be called from within S-Plus.

You can test this by starting S-Plus and attaching the library of interest using the library() function and the following procedure.

First, list the directories in your current S-Plus search path:

> search()
  [1] ".Data"                                   
  [2] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/splus/.Functions"     
  [3] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/stat/.Functions"      
  [4] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/s/.Functions"         
  [5] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/s/.Datasets"          
  [6] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/stat/.Datasets"       
  [7] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/splus/.Datasets"      
  [8] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/library/trellis/.Data"

Then attach the "chron" library:

> library(chron)
       Warning messages:
       The functions and datasets in library section chron are not 
       supported by StatSci. in: library(chron)

The "chron" library happens to be an unsupported library from Bell Labs that Insightful (= MathSoft = StatSci) bundles with S-Plus without supporting it, so you will receive the above warning message when you attach it. Supported libraries will not give you this Warning.

Then run search() again, to see which position was assigned to the "chron" library:

> search()
  [1] ".Data"                                   
  [2] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/splus/.Functions"     
  [3] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/stat/.Functions"      
  [4] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/s/.Functions"         
  [5] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/s/.Datasets"          
  [6] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/stat/.Datasets"       
  [7] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/splus/.Datasets"      
  [8] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/library/trellis/.Data"
  [9] "/usr/usc/splus/3.4/library/chron/.Data"  

Since the "chron" library is at position 9 in the S-Plus search path, the following call to objects() will list all of the S-Plus objects in my "chron" library:

> objects(where=9)
   [1] ".First.lib"         ".Holidays"          "Math.times"        
   [4] "Ops.times"          "[<-.times"          "as.character.times"
   [7] "axis.times"         "c.times"            "clock2frac"        
  [10] "count.events"       "diff.times"         "format.times"      
  [13] "format<-"           "format<-.times"     "frac2clock"        
  [16] "hist.default"       "hist.times"         "hours"             
  [19] "identify.times"     "is.holiday"         "is.weekend"        
  [22] "lines.times"        "mean.default"       "mean.times"        
  [25] "minutes"            "plot.times"         "points.times"      
  [28] "print.chron"        "print.times"        "quantile.default"  
  [31] "quantile.times"     "seconds"            "summary.times"     
  [34] "times"