[Rd] Perhaps a stupid question about clipboards....

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2007, Byron Ellis wrote:

> On 1/11/07, Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>>     Byron> Why is the clipboard accessed through file() and not,
>>     Byron> say, a clipboard() connection? Is there a good reason
>>     Byron> for this or is it simply historical?
>>
>> Why use a new function name for just one special case?
>> Or do you ask because it would help *find* the feature?
>
> For the same reason that pipes have their own function? Additionally,
> some systems have named clipboards (e.g. OS X and IIRC X11, though
> that may require an extension of some sort) that you might want to
> access explicitly.

X11 has two, and with an extension three, and all can be accessed via 
file().

> Actually, ?clipboard turns up the right help page so if you didn't
> know that there wasn't such a function you'd end up at the right place
> (if perhaps a bit confused). As it happens, I use OS X so I had to use
> pipe() since there isn't built in functionality. :-)

That is because no one has contributed it.  Please do so yourself.
When you do, please bear in the mind the convenience factor I pointed out 
earlier in this thread.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595