Force R function call to be self-sufficient

I'm looking for a way to call a function that is not influenced by other objects in .GlobalEnv.

Take a look at the two functions below:

y = 3
f1 = function(x) x+y

f2 = function(x) {
   library(dplyr)
   x %>%
       mutate(area = Sepal.Length *Sepal.Width) %>%
       head()
}

In this case:

f1(5) should fail, because y is not defined in the function scope
f2(iris) should pass, because the function does not reference variables outside its scope

Now, I can overwrite the environment of f1 and f2, either to baseenv() or new.env(parent=environment(2L)):

environment(f1) = baseenv()
environment(f2) = baseenv()
f1(3)    # fails, as it should
f2(iris) # fails, because %>% is not in function env

or:

# detaching here makes `dplyr` inaccessible for `f2`
# not detaching leaves `head` inaccessible for `f2`
detach("package:dplyr", unload=TRUE)
environment(f1) = new.env(parent=as.environment(2L))
environment(f2) = new.env(parent=as.environment(2L))
f1(3)    # fails, as it should
f2(iris) # fails, because %>% is not in function env

Is there a way to overwrite a function's environment so that it has to be self-sufficient, but it also always works as long as it loads its own libraries?

Solution

The problem here is, fundamentally, that library and similar tools don’t provide scoping, and are not designed to be made to work with scopes:¹ Even though library is executed inside the function, its effect is actually global, not local. Ugh.

Specifically, your approach of isolating the function from the global environment is sounds; however, library manipulates the search path (via attach), and the function’s environment isn’t “notified” of this: it will still point to the previous second search path entry as its grandparent.

You need to find a way of updating the function environment’s grandparent environment when library/attach/… ist called. You could achieve this by replacing library etc. in the function’s parent environment with your own versions that calls a modified version of attach. This attach2 would then not only call the original attach but also relink your environment’s parent.

¹ As an aside, ‘box’ fixes all of these problems. Replacing library(foo) with box::use(foo[...]) in your code makes it work. This is because modules are strongly scoped and environment-aware.