[R-SIG-Mac] "edit" command does not work as I would expect

[David Epstein]

I tried using various versions of the 'edit' command. Here is an account of
how this failed. I hope I have included all relevant information.

I haven't used R for a couple of years. Before restarting with R, I
downloaded the latest version I could find in its binary version, and
installed it without any problems.
Mac Os X Finder command "About R" responds with
R 3.0.1 GUI 1.61 Snow Leopard build (6492)

From inside R
> version

> platform       x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0 
> arch           x86_64                      
> os             darwin10.8.0    #(However, my os is in fact 10.6.8)          
> system         x86_64, darwin10.8.0        
> status                                     
> major          3                           
> minor          0.1                         
> year           2013                        
> month          05                          
> day            16                          
> svn rev        62743                       
> language       R                           
> version.string R version 3.0.1 (2013-05-16)
> nickname       Good Sport   
> 
> edit(file='2.9.R')
> Error in file(con, "r") : cannot open the connection
> In addition: Warning message:
> In file(con, "r") : cannot open file '2.9.R': No such file or directory
> 
> getOption('editor')
[1] "vi"

> edit(file='2.9.R',editor='/opt/local/bin/vim')
> Error in file(con, "r") : cannot open the connection
> In addition: Warning message:
> In file(con, "r") : cannot open file '2.9.R': No such file or directory
> 
> vi(file='try')
> Error in file(con, "r") : cannot open the connection
> In addition: Warning message:
> In file(con, "r") : cannot open file 'try': No such file or directory
> 
And here is my interaction with tcsh (my default shell)
H2:~% echo $VISUAL
/opt/local/bin/vim
H2:~% echo $EDITOR
/opt/local/bin/vim
H2:~% which vi
vi:   aliased to /opt/local/bin/vim
H2:~/<4>Chap2% ls -ld
drwxr-xr-x  11 dbae  dbae  374  8 Aug 10:54 ./


What am I doing wrong? 
Thanks for any help.
David