[R] R sometimes dies from within Perl

[michael watson (IAH-C)]

Hi Guys

This is a combined Perl/R question, hopefully there are enough people out there who use both to help me.  I am using the latest versions of both on a SUSE Linux 8.2 machine.

I am wrapping up R in some very simple perl scripts.  My problem is that when I run a series of commands from within R, with a certain data set, one of the commands reports an error but the R process remains active.  

However, if I open a pipe within Perl (using 'open(R, "| R");') and then pipe the very same commands to R using 'print R "<commands>";', then when the error occurs, the R process dies and i get a message "Execution halted".

Can anyone think of a reason why R doesn't crash normally, but does when controlled from within perl?

Thanks
Mick