[R] R not recognized in command line

[Gabor Grothendieck]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 10:41 AM, Duncan Murdoch
<murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11-01-05 8:51 AM, Joshua Wiley wrote:
>>
>> Hi Aaditya,
>>
>> I assume you are running some variant of Windows and by the "prompt in
>> DOS" you are using cmd.exe.
>>
>> Perhaps you are already, but from your examples it looks like either
>> A) you are not in the same directory as R or B) are not adding the
>> path to R in the command.  For example, on Windows I always install R
>> under C:\R\ so for me inside cmd.exe:
>>
>> C:\directory>  C:\R\R-devel\bin\x64\R
>>
>> [[[R starts here]]]
>>
>> alternately you could switch directories over and then just type "R"
>> at the console:
>>
>> C:\directory>  cd C:\R\R-devel\bin\x64\
>> C:\R\R-devel\bin\x64>  R
>>
>> [[[R starts here]]]
>>
>> or since you have set the environment variables:
>>
>> C:\directory>  %R_HOME%\bin\x64\R
>>
>> [[[R starts here]]]
>>
>> Alternately, edit the PATH environment variable in Windows and add the
>> path to R (i.e., R_HOME\bin\i386\ or whatever it is for you), and you
>> should be able to just enter "R" at the command prompt and have it
>> start.
>
> Editing the PATH is probably the best approach, but a lot of people get it
> wrong because of misunderstanding how it works:
>
>  -  If you change PATH in one process the changes won't propagate anywhere
> else, and will be lost as soon as you close that process.  That could be a
> cmd window, or an R session, or just about any other process that lets you
> change environment variables.
>
>  -  If you want to make global changes to the PATH, you need to do it in the
> control panel "System|Advanced|Environment variables" entries.
>
>  - Often it is good enough to use a more Unix-like approach, and only make
> the change at startup of the cmd processor.  You use the /k option when
> starting cmd if you want to run something on startup.
>

You can also use Rcmd.bat, R.bat, Rgui.bat, etc. found at
http://batchfiles.googlecode.com

Just put any you wish to use anywhere on your path and it will work on
all cmd instances and will also work when you install a new version of
R since it looks up R's location in the registry.

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