This help topic is for R version 2.9.0. For the current version of R, try https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-patched/library/base/html/zpackages.html
zpackages {base}R Documentation

Listing of Packages

Description

.packages returns information about package availability.

Usage

.packages(all.available = FALSE, lib.loc = NULL)

Arguments

all.available

logical; if TRUE return a character vector of all available packages in lib.loc.

lib.loc

a character vector describing the location of R library trees to search through, or NULL. The default value of NULL corresponds to all libraries currently known.

Details

.packages() returns the names of the currently attached packages invisibly whereas .packages(all.available = TRUE) gives (visibly) all packages available in the library location path lib.loc.

For a package to be regarded as being available it must have valid metadata (and hence be an installed package).

Value

A character vector of package base names, invisible unless all.available = TRUE.

Author(s)

R core; Guido Masarotto for the all.available=TRUE part of .packages.

See Also

library, .libPaths.

Examples

(.packages())               # maybe just "base"
.packages(all.available = TRUE) # return all available as character vector
require(splines)
(.packages())               # "splines", too
detach("package:splines")

[Package base version 2.9.0 ]