[R] using cat()

[[Ricardo Rodriguez] Your XEN ICT Team]

Thanks, Steve,

Steve Lianoglou wrote:
>
>
> It seems like you're asking to use cat() for something it's not meant 
> to do. cat() is generally used to write output, either to the screen 
> or to a file.
Sorry for not adding an example to my first post! And yes, I was trying 
to use it for something it is not meant to.
> You can use cat *in* a function to print the value of a variable, but 
> you can't "reach into" a function to pull out a variable's value. Are 
> you trying to debug something? See: ?debug to step through a function 
> to examine what it's doing one step at a time.
Yes, I am trying to discover why a function that Phil Spector sent to 
the list one year and a half ago doesn't do the trick for me (please, 
see http://tinyurl.com/lh3fh4). Here the function (it is intended to 
submit code stored in a restricted access web site accepting Basic 
Authentication; source() works nicely for free access sites, but it 
doesn't manage authentication):

getauth = function(url,user,pass){
   require(caTools)
   url = sub('^http://','',url)
   getexpr = function(s,g)substring(s,g,g + attr(g,'match.length') - 1)
   host = sub('^(.*?)/(.*)$','\\1',url,perl=TRUE)
   file = sub('^(.*?)/(.*)$','\\2',url,perl=TRUE)
   upb = base64encode(paste(user,pass,sep=':'))
   request = paste('GET /',file,' HTTP/1.1\nHost: 
',host,'\nAuthorization: Basic ',upb,'\n\n',sep='')
   s = make.socket(host,port=80)
   write.socket(s,request)
   response = read.socket(s,8192)
   close.socket(s)
   header = sub('^(.*)\r\n\r\n(.*)$','\\1',response)
   rest = sub('^(.*)\r\n\r\n(.*)$','\\2',response)
   unlist(strsplit(rest,'\n'))
}

Here what Phil proposed to use instead of source()

eval(parse(text=getauth('http://whatever.com/path/to/file',user,pass)))

At this moment, what I am trying to do is to debug, thanks Steve, this 
function to see where it is failing. Given a real example...

eval(parse(text=getauth('http://tinyurl.com/ne5bl3',user,pass)))

I get NULL.

Please, use DummyDummy as user and dummy as pass if you want to try it. 
Thanks.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Greetings,

Ricardo

-- 
Ricardo Rodríguez
Your XEN ICT Team