
Dear list,

I would like to know if there is any way to include xterm escape sequences in R's prompt using options( prompt= XXX, continue= XXX ), where XXX can contain, for example, "\033[1;31mRed" for chancing text color to red (see http://www.frexx.de/xterm-256-notes/).
If you do this, the color escape sequences work (with an appropriate terminal emulator, e.g., xterm under Linux), providing you with a colored R prompt. However, when using the command history (arrow up/down) the edit line gets messed up because the algorithm counts the escape sequence not as a single char but as multiple. Thus, I was wondering if there would be any way to tell options(prompt) not only the string but also the number of characters in the string (of course, defaulting to strlen).

The specific reason I ask this question is because I have recently written a gedit plug-in for R, allowing it to become a lightweight IDE for R (http://sourceforge.net/projects/rgedit/) and one feature I would like to have is colored prompts (to make the R console easier to navigate through). Alas, as I said before, using options() with escape sequences kind of works as long as you don't use the command history (implemented in my rgedit but disabled by default).

Thanks you in advance,
Dan

 		 	   		  
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