[R-SIG-Mac] tilde expansion in graphics devices

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Mon, 1 Sep 2008, Tim Bergsma wrote:

> Hi.
>
> Use of tilde in filenames passed to graphics drivers crashes R on Mac
> (2.7.1.45970/i386/9.4.0/MacBookPro3,1/2/4).  This is true in the GUI
> as well as on the command line.  For example...
>
> png("~/myplot.png")
> plot(cos)
> dev.off()
>
> ...causes a crash.  tiff() has the same problem.  jpeg() does not
> crash, but the display of the image seems unreliable.
>
> In Windows, all three issue a warning, though png() warns on
> initialization, while tiff() warns on closure.

A completely different device, as is the standard Unix one (and that does 
support tilde-expansion).

> In both Windows and Mac, setwd("~/") has the expected effect,
> suggesting that tilde expansion is supportable in principle.

In principle, yes.  By the particular utility software used, not 
necessarily (which is why png and tiff behave differently on Windows).

>
> Apologies if this is a known problem.
>
> Tim Bergsma , PhD.
> Metrum Research Group, LLC
>
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>

-- 
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