[Rd] New R folder names bring out Windows batch file bug

[Gabor Grothendieck]

Although I independently discovered this bug; its apparently
well known to the experts.  I asked about it on the batch
newsgroup and those knowledgable on this immediately identified
it as such.  I think all one can do is work around it.

On 12/31/05, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> On 12/31/2005 3:59 PM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> > Just wanted to point out to anyone trying to write Windows
> > batch files that the new R-whatever folder names bring out
> > a bug in Windows batch files related to short file names.
> >
> > In particular, this code (which is to the best of my understanding,
> > valid) gives an error. The solution appears to be to use long file
> > names, and make sure you quote them, rather than short ones.
> > That does require that R be able to handle such long names and
> > I think R does, in fact, handle them but at one time it did not in
> > all cases so use of short file names is likely just a workaround
> > from older times.  This does not affect R itself as far as I know
> > but did affect my batchfiles which I have revised.  I am using
> > Windows XP.
> >
> >    C:\>set apath=\Program Files\R\R-2.2.1
> >    C:\>for /f "delims=" %a in ("%apath%") do set AA=%~sa
> >    C:\>set aa
> >    AA=C:\PROGRA~1\R\R-22~1.1.2.1
> >    C:\>cd %aa%
> >    The system cannot find the path specified.
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
> Please let us know Microsoft's response to your bug report.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>