[Rd] R_PAPERSIZE and LC_PAPER

[Roger D. Peng]

Papersize can be set at compile time in the 'config.site' file (R_PAPERSIZE).

-roger

Marc Schwartz (via MN) wrote:
> Prof. Ripley,
> 
> Happy to help.
> 
> So, it sounds like we are thinking along the same lines then.
> 
> A couple of follow up questions:
> 
> 1. Is R_PAPERSIZE_DEFAULT to be the proposed new compile time setting in
> 2.4.0? Unless I missed it, I did not see it documented anywhere (ie.
> R-admin/NEWS for 2.2.1 patched or 2.3.0 devel) and it is not in the
> configure related files that I have here.
> 
> 2. For LC_ALL, it is not set (at least on my FC4 system, have not had
> the time yet to go to FC5) in en_US.UTF-8. Is it set in other locales
> such that it would be of value?
> 
> 
> Thanks also for the pointer to the devel guidelines. I had read through
> them at some point in the past, but it has been a while.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Marc
> 
> On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 18:48 +0100, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>> Marc,
>>
>> Thanks for the comments.  The 2.3.x series is in feature freeze, and 
>> although a few features do break though for patch releases, they had 
>> better be `badly needed' see 
>> http://developer.r-project.org/devel-guidelines.txt).
>>
>> So I was thinking of 2.4.0.
>>
>> My suggestion was going to be along the lines of
>>
>> local({
>> papersize <- as.vector(Sys.getenv("R_PAPERSIZE"))
>> if(!nchar(papersize)) {
>>      lcpaper <- Sys.getlocale("LC_PAPER")
>>      if(nchar(lcpaper))
>>          papersize <- if(length(grep(, lcpaper)) > 0) "letter" else "a4"
>>      else papersize <- as.vector(Sys.getenv("R_PAPERSIZE_DEFAULT"))
>> }
>> options(papersize = papersize)
>> })
>>
>> This is unchanged if LC_PAPER is unset.  For those with LC_PAPER set,
>> its value takes precedence over the compile-time default.  That's almost 
>> exactly equivalent to what happens on Windows (which sets LC_MONETARY for 
>> this purpose, as LC_PAPER is not a locale category there).
>>
>> Now, one could argue that if LC_PAPER is unset it should default to 
>> LC_ALL, but I think is less desirable.
>>
>> Of course, at present Sys.getlocale("LC_PAPER") is not supported, so 
>> that's part of the TODO.
>>
>> Brian
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Marc Schwartz (via MN) wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 08:09 +0100, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
>>>> R uses the environment variable R_PAPERSIZE to set its papersize, e.g. for
>>>> postscript.
>>>>
>>>> It seems the modern way is to via LC_PAPER, e.g.
>>>>
>>>> http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/2002-05/msg00010.html
>>>>
>>>> and Googling will show that people expect this to work.
>>>>
>>>> However, that is not set on my FC3 system, and it would affect people who
>>>> use en_US as their locale in, say, Austria.
>>>>
>>>> Should we be making use of LC_PAPER, or would it just cause further
>>>> complications?  (On Windows, the locale name is used to set the default
>>>> papersize, but there it is unlikely to be set inappropriately.)
>>>
>>> Here's my 0.0162 Euros (at current conversion rates):
>>>
>>> For R 2.4.0, announce that LC_PAPER will become the default environment
>>> variable used to set the default R papersize and then not set
>>> R_PAPERSIZE by default (ie. in build scripts, etc.)
>>>
>>> However, If someone sets R_PAPERSIZE in their site or local profile,
>>> this will supercede the LC_PAPER setting. This would allow for a R
>>> setting that may need to be different than the system default.
>>>
>>> Doing this for 2.4.0 (as opposed to 2.3.x) would give folks notice and
>>> time to consider the impact on their local installations and code, while
>>> enabling future users to take advantage of the standard.
>>>
>>> I think that in general, R should abide by published standards unless
>>> there are very compelling reasons not to.
>>>
>>> HTH,
>>>
>>> Marc Schwartz
>>>
>>>
>>>
> 
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-- 
Roger D. Peng  |  http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/~rpeng/