[R] Hmisc latex() does not want to work

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

Richard M. Heiberger wrote:
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On
> Behalf Of John Kane
> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 03:56 PM
> 
> ## Not run: 
> latex(x)   # creates x.tex in working directory
> w <- latex(x, file='/tmp/my.tex')
> ---------------------------------------------
> 
> I think there is an unclarity in the documentation.  The documentation
> is correct and everything that Frank and Gabor wrote
> is also correct.  The issue is side-effects, which I think need a bit more
> explanation.  I would revise the first example above to read:
> 
> 
> latex(x)   ## 1. creates x.tex in working directory and 
>            ##
>            ## 2. The result of the command is an object of class "latex"
>            ##    which is automatically printed by the latex print method.
>            ##    The latex print method prepends and appends latex headers
> and
>            ##    calls the latex program in the PATH.  If the latex program
> is
>            ##    not in the PATH, you will get error messages from the
> operating
>            ##    system.
> 
> Since you didn't have latex in the PATH, you got an error from the print
> method.  The x.tex file was probably correctly generated and might still be
> sitting
> in your default getwd() directory.
> 
> The second example,
> w <- latex(x, file='/tmp/my.tex')
> doesn't give an error message because the result of the latex() command is
> saved in the object w and not automatically printed.
> 
> 
> Rich

Good - added that in the examples section for the next release of Hmisc.
Thanks Rich
Frank