Investigate and remove Rf_findVarInFrame3 usage in environment

[DavisVaughan]

cpp11/inst/include/cpp11/environment.hpp

Lines 37 to 51 in 1c9dbb6

	operator SEXP() const { return safe[Rf_findVarInFrame3](parent_, name_, TRUE); };
	operator sexp() const { return SEXP(); };
	};
	public:
	environment(SEXP env) : env_(env) {}
	environment(sexp env) : env_(env) {}
	proxy operator[](const SEXP name) const { return {env_, name}; }
	proxy operator[](const char* name) const { return operator[](safe[Rf_install](name)); }
	proxy operator[](const std::string& name) const { return operator[](name.c_str()); }
	bool exists(SEXP name) const {
	SEXP res = safe[Rf_findVarInFrame3](env_, name, FALSE);
	return res != R_UnboundValue;
	}

[DavisVaughan]

Likely going to use R_existsVarInFrame() in exists() on R >=4.2.0

---

And then likely going to use the new R_getVarEx() on >=R-devel, although it has different semantics than Rf_findVarInFrame3(env, sym, TRUE) in edge cases, i.e.:

• For R_MissingArg values in the env, R_getVarEx() errors
• For promises in the env, R_getVarEx() will evaluate them before returning them

I don't think there is anything we can do about this unless we get an iterator API for environments that doesn't add special behavior like this

[DavisVaughan]

Lionel and I decided that for the proxy SEXP conversion method, we should use the new R_getVar() function (not the extended version), which would:

• Error on R_MissingArg (definitely what R Core wants from us)
• Error on unbound symbols in the env (you should check with exists() first, also good to not expose R_UnboundValue)
• Evaluate promises (probably what the typical user wants)

https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/0986e80068addc5c884d06580412ff2331436814/src/main/envir.c#L2305

And then for the fallback for older R versions we call Rf_findVarInFrame3() but then add 3 checks to reimplement the 3 bullets from above, so the behavior is consistent on all R versions.

After the enum / iterator API for environments is released, people will have more options if they want to manually implement more advanced behaviors than this "safe" way.