On 5/10/06, Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 5/10/2006 9:29 AM, Paul Johnson wrote: > > It is a FAQ in our Linux lab. People start emacs and fire up R via > > ess, and then they have no idea 'where they are". For computer > > experts, it is not a problem, but for people who don't know much about > > computers, it is a pretty big problem. They have data in some > > subdirectory, but almost invariably they don't get emacs & R started > > from that same place. > > > > Unfortunately, for our users, it does not help to simply re-label > > setwd as cd. Both commands imply a deeper understanding of the OS > > than they have. Also, unfortunately, these are the same people who > > don't understand that FAQs exist and should be consulted. These people > > are so new/timid that asking in r-help would be the last thing to > > cross their mind. > > > > I've wondered if it would not help to have the R prompt include the > > directory name, as in an x terminal. > > I think file system directories aren't as central in R as they are in a > shell, so it would just be distracting. Most of the time I work in the > R workspace, not in the file system. > > To me the solution is to allow interactive file selection by default, > i.e. the default on read.table and similar functions should be > file.choose(), rather than having no default and throwing an error. > This won't help you in the short run (because file.choose() on Linux > isn't all that friendly to beginners), but perhaps it would encourage > someone to make it better. file.choose() is quite nice in Windows (and > I think on the Mac), so beginners there could be told > > mydf <- read.table() > > and they'd get something useful. > > Martin Maechler has disagreed with me about this in the past, but hasn't > convinced me that he's right, he's just convinced me that doing nothing > is easier than arguing about it.
I agree with Martin regarding read.table; however, the underlying idea is good and could be achieved via simple wrappers which are the same as the corresponding underlying functions except for the default argument to file: read.table.choose <- function(file = file.choose(), ...) read.table(file, ...) read.csv.choose <- function(file = file.choose(), ...) read.csv(file, ...) read.delim.choose <- function(file = file.choose(), ...) read.delim(file, ...) # test mydata <- read.table.choose() in a package available to the users or possibly even in R core. ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
