[Rd] R_PAPERSIZE and LC_PAPER

[Marc Schwartz (via MN)]

Roger,

Thanks.

Yes, this I know. In fact I have a line in my shell script for building
R[-patched]:

  ./configure R_PAPERSIZE=letter


R_PAPERSIZE is document in several places, however R_PAPERSIZE_DEFAULT
is not, unless I am going blind in my middle age...  :-)

Regards,

Marc

On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 14:44 -0400, Roger D. Peng wrote:
> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> > 
>