This is more of a general code structuring question.
At the moment I try to write my code into "namespaces". So for example, I would have:
Mine.FancyPlot.Plot(...)
Mine.FancyPlot.Impl.PlotCanvas(...)
Mine.FancyPlot.Impl.PlotLegend(...)
Mine.BasicPlot.Plot(...)
Mine.BasicPlot.Impl.PlotCanvas(...)
Mine.BasicPlot.Impl.PlotLegend(...)
Mine.BasicPlot.Impl.PlotLines(...)
The idea is that I am trying to hide away "private" functions in a "Impl" for implementation namespace. So outside of Mine_FancyPlot.R I wouldn't call Mine.FancyPlot.Impl functions.
This approach works reasonably well, except code completion isn't as nice as it could be.
To begin with, when I type Mine.BasicPlot. and hit TAB, I get all functions, including the Impl functions, and because I is before P, they even hide the "public" user functions.
So I started changing the structure to
MyPub.FancyPlot.Plot(...)
MyPriv.FancyPlot.PlotCanvas(...)
MyPriv.FancyPlot.PlotLegend(...)
MyPub.BasicPlot.Plot(...)
MyPriv.Mine.BasicPlot.PlotCanvas(...)
MyPriv.Mine.BasicPlot.PlotLegend(...)
MyPriv.Mine.BasicPlot.PlotLines(...)
This works better in that "private" functions are no longer predicted. However, I still have the issue that if I type MyPub. and hit TAB, I can't actually see all different "namespaces" (such as I would in Java, C++, ...), but rather a long list of functions starting all in the first "namespace".
Ideally, I'd like code completion in R to cut off all predictions at the next dot, and unique them, so Ideally when I type MyPub. and hit TAB, I would only get a list of "sub-namespaces" and functions in MyPub.
Is this possible? Can the code prediction be altered to reflect this behaviour? Or is there a better way to achieve what I am aiming for?
You should consider putting your functions in a package to organise them. Functions that are not exported will only be accessible by doing 'package:::functionNotExported' and will not be listed when just doing 'functionNotExpo[tab]'
See for instance debugging a function in R that was not exported by a package