[R-SIG-Mac] problems with the data editor

[Simon Urbanek]

John,

thanks for the report.

On Jan 9, 2009, at 14:07 , John Fox wrote:

> Dear list members,
>
> I thought that I recalled a recent posting reporting a problem with  
> the R
> data editor, but I haven't been able to locate the message in the list
> archive.
>
> In any event, I can reliably cause the R.app data editor either to  
> hang or
> to produce errors in a couple of ways, the first of which is easier to
> describe (the X11 data editor seems more robust, if limited in its
> capabilities):
>
> (1) Edit an empty data frame (which works in the Windows and X11 data
> editors): edit(as.data.frame(NULL)).
>
> (2) Edit any data frame "vigorously," adding a deleting rows and  
> columns
> repeatedly. E.g., library(car); edit(Prestige).
>
> I'm using R 2.8.1 installed from the binary on CRAN under OS X  
> 10.5.5 on a
> MacBook.
>

Can you, please, send me the crash reports you have? I can reproduce  
some of it, but I wonder if it's caused by the same problems as your  
crashes.


> I wonder whether anyone else has observed these problems or has an  
> idea
> about how to fix them.
>

The data editor is horribly old code (or rather horrible, old code)  
that desperately needs re-writing. The plan was originally to do that  
for GUI 2.0, but it is not in sight due to the lack of manpower. I can  
at least see if I can fortify it a bit better so it doesn't generate a  
crash (I was hoping I won't have to do that since it's really an ugly  
mess). FYI the nightly builds won't run the next three nights, because  
we are having a complete shutdown here for maintenance until Monday,  
so the R.app binaries won't be fixed until Tuesday.

Thanks,
Simon


> (I'm copying Brian Ripley since we exchanged emails about this issue  
> earlier
> today.)
>

(Was it a BCC? I didn't see it in the e-mail ...).


> Regards,
> John
>
> ------------------------------
> John Fox, Professor
> Department of Sociology
> McMaster University
> Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
> web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox
>
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