[R] the invisible question

Jim Lemon drj|m|emon @end|ng |rom gm@||@com
Mon Nov 23 03:34:43 CET 2020


Yep, that's it. It's not Kwrite that is doing it, but Gmail. I'll try
to find a Gmail help list or help desk that can provide info. thanks.

Jim

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 12:35 PM David Winsemius <dwinsemius using comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> On 11/22/20 5:20 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
> > On Mon, 23 Nov 2020 10:07:42 +1100
> > Jim Lemon <drjimlemon using gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >> I have encountered a problem in some emails with invisible characters
> >> in code snippets that throw an error when pasted into the terminal
> >> window:
> >>
> >> Error: unexpected input in:
> >> "star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,
> >> �"
> >>
> >> This morning, after two hours of intense frustration, I found that I
> >> could reproduce this by typing code containing the above line into
> >> Kwrite, the text editor I use. When I pasted the code from Kwrite, it
> >> worked in the R terminal window. When I pasted it into a gmail message
> >> (set to Plain Text), copied that and pasted it into the R terminal
> >> window, I got the error. I was helping a young friend with one of
> >> those introductory R courses, but I have had this happen with other
> >> requests on the R help list. I thought that it was the fault of the
> >> fancy formatting in some emails, and could grumpily blame that, but
> >> this is worse as I can't seem to edit it out. Anybody else had this
> >> problem? I have sent a message to Gmail help.
> > (1) Don't use Kwrite (whatever that is) --- use vi[m] like civilised
> > ( :-) ) people do. It's even available for Windoze.  Yes, there is
> > a steep learning curve, but once you've climbed it you'll never look
> > back.  (And for what it's worth, the curve is not as steep as that for
> > emacs!!! :-) )
> >
> > (2) The function tools::showNonASCII might be helpful to you.
>
> Thunderbird on Ubuntu displays it ats:
>
> "star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,
>
> followed by a line feed and then a diamond with a question-mark and a closing double-quote.
>
>
> library(tools)
> showNonASCII("star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,
> + �")
> 1: star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,
> <ef><bf><bd>
>
>
> --
>
> David.
>
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> > Rolf
> >



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