RDCOMClient is offered in a package

I had an R package using RDCOMClient via DESCRIPTION file:

Offers: RDCOMClient

and the following (working perfectly) code:

GetNewWrd <- function() {

  stopifnot(require(RDCOMClient))

  # Starts the Word application with wrd as handle
  wrd <- RDCOMClient::COMCreate("Word.Application", existing=FALSE)
  newdoc <- wrd[["Documents"]]$Add("",FALSE, 0)
  wrd[["Visible"]] <- TRUE 

  invisible(wrd)
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

This seems to be considered bad practice at present, and "Writing R Extensions, 1.1.3.1 Suggested Packages" tells us to state:

if (requireNamespace("rgl", quietly = TRUE)) {
   rgl::plot3d(...)
} else {
   ## do something else not involving rgl.
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

or: .. If the intent is to give an error if the suggested package is not available, just use eg. RGL :: Plot3D.

Re-coding this (to my understanding) would simply mean removing the request-assertion:

GetNewWrd <- function() {

  # Starts the Word application with wrd as handle
  wrd <- RDCOMClient::COMCreate("Word.Application", existing=FALSE)
  newdoc <- wrd[["Documents"]]$Add("",FALSE, 0)
  wrd[["Visible"]] <- TRUE 

  invisible(wrd)
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Doing so results in the following runtime error:

Error in RDCOMClient::COMCreate("Word.Application", existing = FALSE) :
  could not find function "createCOMReference"

      

        
        
        
      

    

createCOMReference is a function in RDCOMClient that apparently cannot be found without an explicit require.

How, luckily, I have to integrate RDCOMClient into my CRAN compliant package.