[R] Cannot change location of tempdir()

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2012, Jon Olav Skoien wrote:

> 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:

Who said it would?  By the time you set these, tempdir() is already 
created.

Set TMPDIR before you start R, e.g. on the RGui command line.

>
>> 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
>
> Disclaimer: Views expressed in this email are those of the individual and do 
> not necessarily represent official views of the European Commission.
>
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>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595