I don't know why the R developers made that comment, and R-devel is probably a better place to follow up, but the usual problem is that Windows treats text files differently than binary files, so seeking n text files is a headache. Binary files ought to be okay, but that is a theoretical opinion, not from experience. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Newmiller The ..... ..... Go Live... DCN:<jdnew...@dcn.davis.ca.us> Basics: ##.#. ##.#. Live Go... Live: OO#.. Dead: OO#.. Playing Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries O.O#. #.O#. with /Software/Embedded Controllers) .OO#. .OO#. rocks...1k --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
On January 13, 2015 10:51:18 AM PST, Mike Miller <mbmil...@umn.edu> wrote: >On Fri, 9 Jan 2015, Duncan Murdoch wrote: > >> On 09/01/2015 5:32 PM, Erin Hodgess wrote: >>> Hello again. >>> >>> Here is another question that I am puzzled about: I had the >>> (incorrect) impression that if I had Rtools on a Windows machine >that I >>> could use any tar.gz package. However, that is not true. >>> >>> In particular, I was looking at the rPython package. I do indeed >have >>> Python on this machine. But when I did R CMD INSTALL rPython, I got >an >>> error message that said, "this is a Unix package". Interesting. >>> >>> Should I just stay with my Ubuntu laptop and behave? >> >> No, but you should not use packages that misbehave. The ideal R >package >> will run on all platforms where R runs. Some require effort from the > >> user to provide prerequisites, but no good R package runs only on one > >> platform. > > >That reminds me to ask if anyone here can provide more details about >the >limitations of seek(). I'm working on some functions that use seek() >and >I may have to tell Windows users not to use these functions. > >>From the manual page for seek(): > >http://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/seek.html > >"Use of seek on Windows is discouraged. We have found so many errors in > >the Windows implementation of file positioning that users are advised >to >use it only at their own risk, and asked not to waste the R developers' > >time with bug reports on Windows' deficiencies." > >My question is about whether this limitation is caused by the Windows >filesystem, typically NTFS, or if the problem is in the Windows OS. If > >the problem were in the filesystem, maybe the docs would have said so >because NTFS can be used on other platforms. > >Secondly, can this problem be addressed at all by using Cygwin? I know > >that Cygwin is running in Windows, so it's still Windows, but R might >be >compiled differently, so I just thought I'd ask! ;-) > >And it doesn't matter which Windows version is used? > >Finally, if the problem is entirely in Windows, and R cannot possibly >overcome it, I suppose that means that it is impossible to write a >program >to run under Windows that can seek (is it fseek in C?) reliably to a >position in a file. If that is the case, it's going to be hard to >develop >good systems for managing bioinformatic data on Windows. > >Thanks in advance. > >Mike ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.