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I'm working on a package and I want it to (usually) print a welcome message when it's loaded, primarily to leave a written trace of the version number in the notebook where it's used. For example:

BeginPackage["Test`"];
Test::usage="Testing";
Begin["`Private`"];
Print["Test Package Version 1.0"];
Test:=Print["123"];
End[];
EndPackage[];

<<Test`
(* Test Package Version 1.0 *)

However this gets cumbersome in the documentation pages I'm writing, so I'd like a way to omit the welcome message. Maybe with a semicolon, as:

Needs["Test`"];
(* silently loads package *)

However, the Print inside the package doesn't care if Needs has a semicolon or not. Is there some straightforward way to achieve this effect?

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    $\begingroup$ Instead of Print your could just return your string after EndPackage[]. $\endgroup$
    – Kuba
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 8:46
  • $\begingroup$ @Kuba Thanks, I suspected there might be an easy way. I'd tried including the string, but not after EndPackage[]. $\endgroup$
    – Chris K
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 8:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Kuba Have you ever used this in practice? I'd like to read opinions about how well it works in practice. I never thought of this solution, but it looks to be very useful. $\endgroup$
    – Szabolcs
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 8:51
  • $\begingroup$ @Szabolcs It seems to work for me so far. $\endgroup$
    – Chris K
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 8:54
  • $\begingroup$ @Szabolcs I didn't have a use case for such message. Otoh the fewer side effects package loading has the better. Atm I don't see where this can lead to a problem. $\endgroup$
    – Kuba
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 8:56

1 Answer 1

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Moving my comment to the answer: you can put your message after EndPackage[] instead of printing it:

BeginPackage["Test`"];
  Test::usage="Testing";
Begin["`Private`"];    
  Test:=Print["123"];
End[];
EndPackage[];
"Test Package Version 1.0"

It seems to do exactly what you want.

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    $\begingroup$ Reference from the documentation for Get: "<<name reads in a file, evaluating each expression in it and returning the last one." $\endgroup$
    – Michael E2
    Commented Jun 18, 2019 at 22:50

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