[R] Problem compiling Rnw file

[Yihui Xie]

Let me clarify a little bit about me comments on SO: setwd() should be
called in the first place before you work on anything, and it should
never be used in the middle of a project (if you do, you need to
restore it later). Presumably Sweave writes the output file using
something like cat(output, file = 'yourfile.tex'); if you changed your
working directory before that, the tex file will be written to an
unexpected place.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie <xieyihui at gmail.com>
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA


On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 10:58 AM, Jessica Streicher
<j.streicher at micromata.de> wrote:
> I'll second the full path option.
>
> Just create a variable path_to_data and concatenate it with the names of any files you need in that directory.
> You could also try to use relative paths if the data is "nearby" and is likely to not change that position.
>
> e.g. if the data was in '/home/r/Documents/mydata/whatever.txt', while you are working in '/home/r/Documents/myproj/', you can reach that directory via '../mydata/whatever.txt'.
>
>
> On 05.11.2012, at 16:23, Riccardo Romoli wrote:
>
>> Dear R list,
>> I'm using R 2.15.2 with TeX Live 2009 and ESS 12.09 . I have a R
>> project in the '/home/r/Documents/myproj/', which is my working
>> directory (where I have the .Rnw file). Inside the document I have
>> several "setwd()" to collect the datasets I use.
>>
>> After I compile from the terminal using "R CMD Sweave myproj.Rnw", I
>> receive the error:
>>
>> Error in driver$finish(drobj) :
>>  the output file 'myproj.tex' has disappeared
>> Calls: <Anonymous> -> do.call -> <Anonymous> -> <Anonymous>
>> Execution halted
>>
>> but the file "myproj.tex" is produced and if I compile it using
>> "pdflatex myproj.tex" all works fine.
>>
>> Googling I found a similar problem but that guy have problem also
>> compiling the tex file. I found enteresting a comment: "Thou shall
>> never setwd() inside a report! setwd() should always be kept out of a
>> report [...]". This is what I found:
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12162092/r-sweave-output-error
>>
>> Anyone knows why that happens?? Have you any idea about this kind of
>> error?? How can I solve this problem without moving the files and the
>> folders where I have the data sets??
>>
>> Best
>> Riccardo