readGDX() returns alias, not set

[0UmfHxcvx5J7JoaOhFSs5mncnisTJJ6q]

gdx/R/readGDX.R

Line 221 in 6a32a33

tmp2 <- rgdx(path.expand(gdx),l,squeeze=FALSE,followAlias=FALSE)

What is the rationale for this? Sets and their aliases are used transparently in GAMS, why not here?

[tscheypidi]

sorry, what is your problem here?

[0UmfHxcvx5J7JoaOhFSs5mncnisTJJ6q]

In GAMS there is no difference in using a set, or an alias for a set.

Set foo / 1 * 2 /;

alias(foo, bar);

display foo, bar;

execute_unload "foobar.gdx", foo, bar;

It says that it is an alias, but displays the values all the same.

----      5 SET foo  
1,    2
----      5 SET bar  Aliased with foo
1,    2

But reading an alias with readGDX() does not return the values of the set:

> str(readGDX('foobar.gdx', 'foo'))
 chr [1:2] "1" "2"
 - attr(*, "gdxdata")=List of 5
  ..$ name   : chr "foo"
  ..$ type   : chr "set"
  ..$ form   : chr "sparse"
  ..$ domains: chr "*"
  ..$ domInfo: chr "none"
 - attr(*, "description")= chr ""

> str(readGDX('foobar.gdx', 'bar'))
List of 3
 $ name    : chr "bar"
 $ type    : chr "alias"
 $ aliasFor: chr "foo"

So users cannot simply look up (something that looks like) a set in GAMS (say in the definition of an equation) and use that with readGDX(). They have to first check if that is an alias.
Since this is an deliberate choice (followAlias = FALSE is not the default), I wonder why that is.