How to provide your own example data for a custom package?

Question

A nice feature of the mathematica documentation is the copious use of ExampleData in illustrating functionality. I would like to provide some example data for a package I have written, but there is apparently no guidance in the docs or on the net on how to do this. Consequently, I have two related questions:

1. Is there a hook into the system's ExampleData function for providing your own example data? I'm thinking along the lines of the ImportExport`RegisterImport[] function that provides seamless integration of a custom import converter to the Import[] command.

2. If not, what is a good way to provide example data from a custom package? Ideally, the data would be available from the documentation browser when someone tries one of the examples.

I would prefer to package the data together with the package code, rather than store it on a remote server and access it with Import["http://myserver.com/exampledata.zip"].

Answer 1

You could simply add new definitions for ExampleData in your package:

Unprotect[ExampleData];
ExampleData[{"JxBs Package", "RandomNumberSequence"}] := {7, 5, 8, 2, 1, 5, 3, 7, 9, 1};
Protect[ExampleData];

Which would make it available after loading your package

ExampleData[{"JxBs Package", "RandomNumberSequence"}]

{7, 5, 8, 2, 1, 5, 3, 7, 9, 1}

This is sort of cheating, but It will work for your code, just not with with ExampleData's listing of types, and properties.