[R-SIG-Mac] system('man R') works in Mac unix R but not in GUI R

[Joseph Kunkel]

On "Why use 'man R'?"   

Hooray, system('R --help') works in both a unix-terminal-R session and also in the GUI!   My problem solved.

Thanks!!

Joe
 
On Mar 25, 2011, at 10:56 AM, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Mar 2011, Kasper Daniel Hansen wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Joseph Kunkel <joe at bio.umass.edu> wrote:
>>> Using  R 2.12.2 GUI 1.36 Leopard build 64-bit (5691)
>>> 
>>> system('man R') gives error: 'No manual entry for R' ...  ??
>>> 
>>> Running R in a unix window the system('man R') function provides the expected manual entry.
>>> 
>>> This complicates my teaching of R with the Gui if I want to use the system('R ...') function.   Students need to know unix-window-use as a prereq.
>>> 
>>> system('man vi')  however does provide the correct unix vi manual in either unix or GUI.
>> 
>> Well, as you might know, setting PATH and other environment variables
>> in the terminal using, say .profile or .bashrc, does not make them set
>> inside of a GUI.  This has been discussed many times on this list (and
>> really has nothing to do with R at all).
> 
> Note though that this is slightly different: it is about what is set in the shell which system() launches from R.app, not the usual question of what variables are set for R.app itself.
> 
>> In this case it is because vi ships with the system and the man page
>> for vi is in
>> # man -w vi
>> /usr/share/man/man1/vi.1.gz
>> 
>> I do not have the GUI (CRAN) version of R installed, but I would guess
>> that the man page is in /usr/local/share ..., and you can check the
>> directories man searches by
>> # man -d
> 
> I do, and 'man R' does not find it (and it is not under /usr/local/share/man, which is on my system searched from system() in R.app).  My reading of the CRAN installation scripts is that it is only installed in /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/man1
> (Try 'locate R.1': all the other instances are in my own development area.)
> 
> So I think the question should rather be why 'man R' works in a 'unix window' (whatever that really is).
> 
> And also why you think 'man R' is useful for your students, rather than say 'R --help' (from which it is derived by a Perl script) or the 'Introduction to R' manual.
> 
> -- 
> 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

-·.  .· ·.  .><((((º>·.  .· ·.  .><((((º>·.  .· ·.  .><((((º> .··.· >=-       =º}}}}}><
Joseph G. Kunkel, Professor
Biology Department
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst MA 01003
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/