[ESS] Finding 64-bit R versions on Windows

[Kevin Coombes]

M-x R-newest on Windows (at least on my machine) always finds the newest 
32-bit version.

I can help test whatever gets developed, but it would certainly be 
useful is someone else also tested it!

   --Kevin

On 7/9/2014 7:09 AM, Stephen Eglen wrote:
> hi Kevin,
>
> I think we could add something like this, but as I'm not on Windows, we
> might need some help testing it (+ Rich?).  On unix we already have "M-x
> R-newest"; what does that do for you on Windows?
>
> Perhaps on the mac we also have the choice of 64 or 32 bit?  In which
> case we could have a variable like
>
> (defcustom ess-prefer-64bit t)
>
> to allow us to set a preference for 64 bit.
>
>
> Some help with elisp below:
>
>
>> ;; This hack finds the latest 64-bit version.
>> (defun R64 (&optional start-args)
>>     "Call the latest 64-bit version of R"
>>     (interactive "P")
>>     ;; sweep through the list of R-version commands
>>     ;; to find the 64-bit ones
>>     (defun m64 (target)
>>       "remove string '-64bit' from target"
>>       (if (string-match "-64bit" target)
>>       (replace-match "" t t target)
>>         ))
> if you have an (if ) with no else portion, as you do here, just rewrite
> it as:
>
>    (when (string-match "-64bit" target)
>       (replace-match "" t t target))
>
>
>
>
>>      ;; now use the newest version that matches a 64-bit version
>>      (defun krc-in-newest (source)
>>        (if source
>>        (if (string-match source ess-newest-R)
>>            (concat source "-64bit")
>>          nil)
>>          nil))
> that can probably be simplified:
>
>    (when (and source (string-match source ess-newest-R))
>      (concat source "-64bit"))
>
>
> all untested though of course!