[R] Cannot change location of tempdir()

[Jon Olav Skoien]

Hi,

One of the functions I use needs to write to a temporary file, in the 
directory given by tempdir(). I want to change this from the standard 
one, as the file is too large for the drive. However, tempfile() doesnt 
seem to respect the environment variables when I change them with 
Sys.setenv(). In a fresh R-session:

 > Sys.getenv("TMP")
[1] "C:\\Users\\skoiejo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp"
 >  Sys.setenv(TMP = "e:\\Temp\\Rtmp")
 > Sys.getenv("TMP")
[1] "e:\\Temp\\Rtmp"
 >  tempfile()
[1] "C:\\Users\\skoiejo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\Rtmp2tvQ7U\\file499a5987"
# I have also tried to change "TMPDIR", "TEMP" and "R_USER", all with 
the same result.

# The directory is writable:
 > write("some text", file = paste(Sys.getenv("TMP"),"test.txt",sep = ""))
 > list.files(Sys.getenv("TMP"))
[1] "test.txt"

I have probably misunderstood something, but what? Session info below.

 > sessionInfo()
R version 2.14.0 (2011-10-31)
Platform: x86_64-pc-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_United 
States.1252    LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                           LC_TIME=English_United 
States.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_2.14.0

I know this is not the last version, but I do not have administrator 
rights myself on the computer and did not see any relevant references to 
tempfile() in the news for newer versions.

Thanks,
Jon

-- 
Jon Olav Skøien
Joint Research Centre - European Commission
Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES)
Land Resource Management Unit

Via Fermi 2749, TP 440,  I-21027 Ispra (VA), ITALY

jon.skoien at jrc.ec.europa.eu
Tel:  +39 0332 789206

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