[R] help with function "system" and MS-DOS command TYPE

Vladimir Eremeev wl2776 at gmail.com
Wed Jan 31 12:36:23 CET 2007



Chen, Xiao wrote:
> 
> Greetings -
> 
> I have a quick question that I hope someone will have a quick answer. I
> have tried to use the R function "system" with the MS-DOS command "type"
> to display the full content of a text file. But it always returns with a
> message saying the text file is not found. I could accomplish the same 
> task with the "cat" command which is one of the unix-like commands that 
> I have installed on my windows machine. But I would like to know how it 
> would work with the "type" command.  
> 
> Here is what I have tried:
> 
>> zz<-file("d:/work/test/test.txt", "w")
>> cat("this is a test\n", file=zz)
>> close(zz)
>> system("cat test.txt", show.output.on.console=T)
> this is a test
>> system("type test.txt", show.output.on.console=T)
> test.txt not found
> 

type is an internal command, rather than an executable file

use
system("cmd /c type test.txt", show.output.on.console=T)
or
system("command /c type test.txt", show.output.on.console=T)

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