[R] Setting .Rprofile for RStudio on a Windows 7 x64bit

[John]

On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 15:57:42 -0400
BR_email <br at dmstat1.com> wrote:

> Henrik:
> Your points are well taken.
> My biggest mistake was that I thought my question was an easy one.
> But as you rightly stated, I did not explicitly provide my background.
> I assumed my question implied how much I did not know, beyond being
> new to R.
> It's like Einstein teaching arithmetic, he would know his audience
> and teach accordingly.
> 
> It was tough on me (mentally draining) because I want to learn R
> and just couldn't break through until I believe either you or Peter 
> picked up on my using notepad.
> 
> Well, I am glad you guys really want to help and must as I needed it.
> 
> Regards,
> Bruce
> 
Henrik's point about editors is very important since it has implications
well beyond editing something like .Rprofile.  Depending on the scale
and kinds of data you work with, you may conclude that one of
the easiest means of getting data into R is through delimited, plain
text files.  I tend to prefer tab-delimited files because the data I use
often contains descriptive fields that are useful to have, but often
contain commas, ruling out standard csv files.  Many "text" editors in
both Windows and Linux routinely and quietly convert tabs to some
standard number of spaces.  You want an editor that will produce
precisely what you tell it to.  While you can pull delimited files into
Excel, a good text editor, not Notepad or Wordpad, such as Notepad++ in
Windows or Kwrite in Linux (both of which will save a tab as a tab
(though Kwrite needs to set to do so) and speed data formatting and
editing immensely.  Also, if you are using RStudio you should consider
using the "project" capability.  You will then never have to worry
about .Rproject again.

JWDougherty