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

[Scott Kostyshak]

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 2:24 AM, Deepayan Sarkar
<deepayan.sarkar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Scott Kostyshak <skostysh at princeton.edu> wrote:
>> 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?
>
> Given that edit() itself is called with the three arguments, it seems
> more general to pass them to the editor function, and I don't see the
> need for a special case. You can always write your function as
>
> vimEdit <- function(file_, ...) system(paste(vimCmd, file_))

Indeed, makes sense.

> I will clarify the documentation.

Great. Thanks a lot for taking the time to understand the issue.

Best,

Scott


--
Scott Kostyshak
Economics PhD Candidate
Princeton University