On Thu, 11 Jan 2007, Byron Ellis wrote: > On 1/11/07, Martin Maechler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Byron> Why is the clipboard accessed through file() and not, >> Byron> say, a clipboard() connection? Is there a good reason >> Byron> for this or is it simply historical? >> >> Why use a new function name for just one special case? >> Or do you ask because it would help *find* the feature? > > For the same reason that pipes have their own function? Additionally, > some systems have named clipboards (e.g. OS X and IIRC X11, though > that may require an extension of some sort) that you might want to > access explicitly.
X11 has two, and with an extension three, and all can be accessed via file(). > Actually, ?clipboard turns up the right help page so if you didn't > know that there wasn't such a function you'd end up at the right place > (if perhaps a bit confused). As it happens, I use OS X so I had to use > pipe() since there isn't built in functionality. :-) That is because no one has contributed it. Please do so yourself. When you do, please bear in the mind the convenience factor I pointed out earlier in this thread. -- Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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 ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
