[Rd] [patch] Add support for editor function in edit.default

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 5:55 AM, Scott Kostyshak <skostysh at princeton.edu> wrote:
> Regarding the following extract of ?options:
>      ‘editor’: a non-empty string, or a function that is called with a
>           file path as argument.
>
> edit.default currently calls the function with three arguments: name,
> file, and title. For example, running the following

To be clear with what I view as problematic, note in the above that
the documentation says the function is called with a file path as an
argument, suggesting one argument; but in practice it is called with
three arguments.

> vimCmd <- 'vim -c "set ft=r"'
> vimEdit <- function(file_) system(paste(vimCmd, file_))
> options(editor = vimEdit)
> myls <- edit(ls)
>
> gives "Error in editor(name, file, title) : unused arguments (file, title)".
>
> The attached patch changes edit.default to call the editor function
> with just the file path. There is at least one inconsistent behavior
> that this patch causes in its current form. It does not obey the
> following (from ?edit):
>      Calling ‘edit()’, with no arguments, will result in the temporary
> file being reopened for further editing.
>
> I see two ways to address this: (1) add a getEdFile() function to
> utils/edit.R that calls a function getEd() defined in edit.c that
> returns DefaultFileName; or (2) this patch could be rewritten in C in
> a new function in edit.c.
>
> Is there any interest in this patch?
> If not, would there be interest in an update of the docs, either
> ?options (stating the possibility that if 'editor' is a function, it
> might be called with 'name', 'file', and 'title' arguments) or ?edit
>  ?

Any interest in this patch? If not, would a patch for the
documentation be considered?

Scott


--
Scott Kostyshak
Economics PhD Candidate
Princeton University