[R] http proxies: setting and unsetting

[matt.pettis at thomson.com]

Hi Gabor,

Thanks for the reply and link.

I took a look at the link -- one thing I don't understand is why if I delete the 'http_proxy' variable via the cmd shell (or equivalent OS dialog box), why I can get R to ignore the proxy, but using Sys.setenv("http_proxy"="") won't do that for me (at least for the scope of the session).  If there were other variables affecting it, I would think my deleting 'http_proxy' in the OS would also have no effect -- yet it does.

Any ideas?

Thanks again,
Matt


-----Original Message-----
From: Gabor Grothendieck [mailto:ggrothendieck at gmail.com]
Sent: Tue 5/29/2007 9:49 PM
To: Pettis, Matthew (Thomson)
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R] http proxies: setting and unsetting
 
Note that Windows XP has 4 types of environment variables and I suspect
that the problem stems from not taking that into account:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/guide/sas_wsh_kmmj.mspx?mfr=true

On 5/29/07, matt.pettis at thomson.com <matt.pettis at thomson.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to use R at work and at home on the same computer.  At work, I have a proxy, and at home, I do not.  I have, for work, a User environment variable "http_proxy" which I set in the OS (Windows XP Pro).  When I am at work, and I try to retrieve data from the web with 'read.csv', things work just fine.  I assume it knows how to use the proxy.
>
> The trouble is when I am at home and have no proxy, R still tries to use my work proxy.  I have tried the following:
>
> Sys.setenv("http_proxy"="")
> Sys.setenv("no_proxy"=TRUE)
> Sys.setenv("no_proxy"=1)
>
> none of which seems to work.  Whenever I try to use read.csv, it tells me that it cannot find my work proxy, which I am trying to tell R to ignore.
>
> I can solve this problem by removing the http_proxy environment variable binding in the OS when at home, but that is a pain, because then I have to reset it when I go back into work.
>
> Is there a way to tell R within a session to ignore the proxy?  If so, what am I doing wrong?
>
> thanks,
> matt
>
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