[R] R process must die - can I save history?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On 02/10/2012 18:29, Bert Gunter wrote:
> ?history
>
> in a fresh R session, to see what might be possible. I'll bet the
> answer is, "No, you're screwed," though. Nevertheless, maybe Linux
> experts can save you.

Maybe not.  On a Unix-alike see ?Signals.  If you can find the pid of 
the R process and it is still running (and not e.g. suspended),

kill -USR1 <pid>

will save the workspace and history.

>
> May the Force be with you.
>
> -- Bert
>
> On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I connected from my desktop Linux box to a Linux server using ssh in an
>> xterm, but that xterm was running in Xvnc.  I'm running R on the server in
>> that xterm (over ssh).  Something went wrong with Xvnc that has caused it to
>> hang, probably this bug:
>>
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vnc4/+bug/819473
>>
>> So I can't get back to that ssh session or to R.  I had done a bunch of work
>> in R but the command history hasn't been written out.  If I kill R, I assume
>> the command history is gone.  I wish I could somehow cause R to dump the
>> command history.  Is there any way to tell the running R process to write
>> the history somewhere?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> --
>> Michael B. Miller, Ph.D.
>> Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research
>> Department of Psychology
>> University of Minnesota
>>
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>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>
>


-- 
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