python rpy2 module: refresh global R environment

Question

The documentation for rpy2 states that the robjects.r object gives access to an R global environment. Is there a way to "refresh" this global environment to its initial state?

I would like to be able to restore the global environment to the state it was in when the rpy2.robjects module was imported but not yet used. In this manner, I don't have to worry about memory leaks on long running jobs or other unexpected side effects. Yes, refreshing the environment could introduce a different category of bug, but I believe in my case it will be a win.

Answer 1

Taking your question to mean literally what it says, if you just want to clear out .GlobalEnv, you can do that with a single line:

rm(list = ls(all.names=TRUE))

The all.names=TRUE bit is necessary because some object names are not returned by vanilla ls(). For example:

x <- rnorm(5)
ls()
# [1] "x"

# Doesn't remove objects with names starting with "."
rm(list=ls())
ls(all.names = TRUE)
# [1] ".Random.seed"

# Removes all objects
rm(list = ls(all.names=TRUE))
ls(all.names = TRUE)
# character(0)   

Answer 2

There is only /one/ "global environment" in R; it is initialized when R starts. You can clear out its members, as Josh points it out, but if you happen to need to it this might mean that you'd better instanciate new environments and either switch between them or delete them when no longer needed.