[R] Questions from a beginner.

[Paul Y. Peng]

Prof Brian D Ripley wrote:
> 
> Please do read the rw-FAQ: it is designed for beginners and answers these
> questions (except 2, where it tells you that this is not the correct forum
> for your question)!

The problem described in question 1 is quite weird. I followed all
instructions to create a shortcut of Rgui.exe in my working
directory and to specify the working directory name in the property
of the shortcut. If I issue getwd() right after a session of R is
started, it does show the correct working directory. But after a
while of using R or other Windows applications and if I check the
working directory again using getwd(), very often it shows an
incorrect name! For example, it may point to C:\\RECYCLED or
C:\\Windows, and it does not stay there and may jump to somewhere
else if I check it later.

I am not sure whether this is a problem of R or not. I had the
same problem with Cygwin bash, but it was solved after I
reinstalled Cygwin. Maybe some of you experienced the same problem
and knows how to solve it.

For question 2, Tony Rossini told me that unfortunately it is
"normal" behavior for R + ESS-5.1.18 + NTEmacs and no solution
yet.

Thanks to all who responded.

Paul.

My original post:
 
> > I have used S-PLUS for years. Now I am learning to use R in
> > Windows'98. I downloaded the latest version and installed it as
> > instructed. However, I cannot find answers from online help to the
> > following questions I encountered. If any of you has quick answers
> > to these questions, please drop me a couple of lines. Thanks.
> >
> > 1. Why does R change my working directory during a session? I often
> > used getwd() to check my working directory and surprisingly found
> > that it was changed, and the location it changes to is quite random.
> > Has anybody encountered this problem? It is very annoying to check
> > and set my working directory whenever I want to save my work.
> >
> > 2. I downloaded ESS-5.1.18 and installed it in NTEmacs-20.4. It works
> > fine with S-PLUS 2000. However, if I use it with R, it is very very
> > slow and takes more than one minute to see the R prompt after M-x R.
> > After that, it seems OK. Why?
> >
> > 3. From the online documents, I often see descriptions related to
> > Rcmd. But there is no file in the Windows distribution of R named
> > Rcmd. Is it renamed Rterm.exe in Windows?
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