[R] R GUI and object browser

[ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk]

On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Patrick Connolly wrote:

> On Wed, 17-Jul-2002 at 07:39AM +0100, Prof Brian D Ripley wrote:
>
> |> This may be appealing, but
> |>
> |> 1) R objects such as lists have shared components. You get the creation
> |> date of the object, not of it components, and in any case I suspect you
> |> want the last modification date.
>
> That's true.  I'm interested to know when I last did something to it.
> For functions, I have the creation already from the nifty feature in
> ESS called ess-insert-function-outline.
>
> My method of using the comment to store the date is at least as simple
> as the one Dan Putler suggests and it can apply to any object.  I have
> no other use for comment since I annotate the file of commands I use
> to keep me informed of the raison d'etre for each object.
>
> [....]
>
> |> The only clean way I can see to do this would be to alter the internal
> |> structure to store a creation date in a SEXPREC.
>
> That's sounds along the lines of what I had in mind, but I had no idea
> what it would involve.
>
> |> That would add some memory overhead (but less than attributes).  It
> |> looks doable, but I remain unconvinced it is worthwhile.
>
> If hardly anyone agrees with me that the dates are useful to know,
> it's certainly not worthwhile.  I'm not unhappy doing things the way I
> do, inelegant though it is and it doesn't seem as though there's a
> great clamour for such functionality.  However, if there were, what
> would I need to know to be able to contribute to the effort that would
> be involved?

You would need a detailed understanding of the way R handles SEXPRECS.
I don't think many people do.

-- 
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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