What is this odd package?

General
1

I was about to answer a question on stack overflow where someones dataset was named file1. As I started playing with that, I noticed the following:

52 PM
52 PM1802×1106 79 KB

I have no idea what that is. Any ideas?

2

It is not a package, most probably, just something on the search path, see search(). attach() can put things in the search path, and some packages, e.g. withr are using this.

3

Hm, I'm still confused what file1077236afa8fd is. What does it mean if it's something on the search path? That it's an attached package or R object? Should I be able to see it when running search()?

Running search() I see the following:

> search()
 [1] ".GlobalEnv"        "tools:rstudio"     "package:stats"     "package:graphics"  "package:grDevices" "package:utils"    
 [7] "package:datasets"  "package:methods"   "Autoloads"         "package:base"

Running searchpaths():

> searchpaths()
 [1] ".GlobalEnv"                                                              
 [2] "tools:rstudio"                                                           
 [3] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/library/stats"    
 [4] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/library/graphics" 
 [5] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/library/grDevices"
 [6] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/library/utils"    
 [7] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/library/datasets" 
 [8] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.4/Resources/library/methods"  
 [9] "Autoloads"                                                               
[10] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/library/base"

For whatever it's worth, I never use attach() and I took the screenshot after restarting the R session.

4

Does it have any methods?

5

Even if you don't use attach(), the packages you use might. This is how you typically put a custom list or environment on the search path:

❯ attach(list(foo = "bar"), name = basename(tempfile()))
❯ search()
 [1] ".GlobalEnv"         "file15f341fe27c68"  "package:pkgdepends"
 [4] "devtools_shims"     "package:testthat"   "package:stats"
 [7] "package:graphics"   "package:grDevices"  "package:utils"
[10] "package:datasets"   "package:tracer"     "tools:prettycode"
[13] "package:prettycode" "package:methods"    "Autoloads"
[16] "package:base"
6

I don't think so. Though I don't know the appropriate way to test if something has any methods. I tried the following:

methods(file1077236afa8fd)

Error in methods(file1077236afa8fd) : 
  object 'file1077236afa8fd' not found