Thanks a ton, Duncan! So I have verified that this line works:
echo "postscript(file=\"\", command=\"cat\"); plot(0)" | r --vanilla --slave Wonderful! (albeit a little unobvious) --Gene On Fri, 7 Sep 2007, Duncan Murdoch wrote: > On 9/7/2007 12:36 PM, Gene Selkov wrote: >> I have found two prior instances of this question in R-help, but I can't >> find the answer, and I'm giving up on mindless tinkering. >> >> http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/03a/5994.html >> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2004-December/062259.html >> >> I must be able to pipe the poltting commands to stdin and receive the plot >> on stdout, with errors written to stderr, should any occur. >> >> Here's what I tried: >> >> file test.r: >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> postscript(stdout()) >> plot(0) >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> >> This command: >> >> cat test.r | r --vanilla --slave >> >> writes the output to a file named "1" >> >> I have also tried: >> >> postscript(file=stdout()) >> postscript(file=file("stdout")) >> >> In the latter case, the output goes to the file named "3". >> >> Other graphics devices do the same thing. >> >> It is interesting that write.table() supports the file=stdout() idiom. If >> there is no official option to do this, I will appreciate a hint about the >> spot in the code where I can fix it. > > The ?postscript man page suggests that > > postscript(file="", command="cat") > > should do what you want (or maybe something other than "cat" for the > passthrough). The file arg is described as a character string, not a > connection, so I wouldn't expect stdout() to work. For write.table(), the > arg is defined to be either the name of a file or an open connection. > > Duncan Murdoch > >> >> Thanks, >> >> --Gene >> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>> sessionInfo() >> R version 2.5.1 (2007-06-27) >> i386-apple-darwin8.10.1 >> >> locale: >> C >> >> attached base packages: >> [1] "stats" "graphics" "grDevices" "utils" "datasets" "methods" >> [7] "base" >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.