[R] save.image() issue resolved - I hope

[Prof Brian D Ripley]

On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, Marc R. Feldesman wrote:

> I've been combing through logs I keep of all my activities.  I've found a
> possible correlation between the save.image() problem I'm having and one
> particular event.
>
> My system has a rewriteable DVD drive.  I keep a 4.7 GB DVD/RW disk in the
> E: drive and have a system scheduler synchronize the contents of the g:
> drive with the e: drive every Friday night.  Interestingly, both times I've
> discovered the save.image() problem have been on Saturday mornings.  I
> discovered that if I copy the entire data directory on the g: drive to a
> new directory on the same drive, I don't have the save.image()
> problem.  However, if I manually synchronize the two drives (G -> E),
> save.image() fails.  The only difference I can see between the data
> directory *before* synchronization and *after* synchronization is that
> synchronization "unsets" the archive bit.  If I make a new directory, the
> "archive bit" is set and save.image() works.
>
> I'm not sure why this is a problem for the routines in R -- it certainly
> doesn't seem to be a problem with other programs -- but either avoiding
> synchronization (a straight copy also works, but copies far more than is
> actually necessary), or manually resetting the archive bit before using R
> seems to "solve" the problem.

Renaming via the ISO C call is an unusual thing for Windows programs to
use.  The Windows implementation is not POSIX-compliant.  I'll see if there
are better ways to do this under Windows (but not for 1.5.0).  Sometimes
Explorer can works with files that tools ported from Unix think are in use.

Manually resetting the archive bit may well release the file too.

> BTW, I've been using a program called Powerdesk 5.0 (for Windows XP) to do
> the synchronization.  The DVD-RW is prepared using Roxio's Direct CD/DVD 5.14.

Looks like Powerdesk is not releasing files it has copied.

-- 
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 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595


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