Colleagues,

I am preparing scripts that will be used by others on both Windows and  
Linux/OSX platforms.  The scripts call an existing Fortran  
application.  The user may have any of a a variety of Fortran  
compilers - my goal is to determine whether or not the test command  
returns "no input files" or "command not found" (i.e., so that I can  
confirm which Fortran they are using).

In OS X and Linux, I can do the following:
> > TEST <- system("g77 2>&1", intern=TRUE)
> > TEST
> [1] "g77: no input files"
>
> > TEST <- system("f77 2>&1", intern=TRUE)
> > TEST
> [1] "sh: f77: command not found"
I can then use grep to determine which of the two strings was returned.

In Windows:
> > TEST <- system("g95 2>&1")
> g95: 2>&1: Invalid argument
> > TEST
> [1] 0
> attr(, "exec.status"):
> [1] 0
> attr(, "exit.status"):
> [1] 0
> >
> > TEST <- system("g95")
> g95: no input files
> > TEST
> [1] 0
> attr(, "exec.status"):
> [1] 0
> attr(, "exit.status"):
> [1] 0

As you can see, Windows replies "no input files"; however, that info  
is not captured in TEST.  I presume that this is because standard  
error is dealt with different in Windows compared to Unix-line  
platforms.  Any thoughts on how to capture standard error in Windows?

Dennis


Dennis Fisher MD
P < (The "P Less Than" Company)
Phone: 1-866-PLessThan (1-866-753-7784)
Fax: 1-415-564-2220
www.PLessThan.com


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