Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On 11-05-03 11:25 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: 1. Few Windows users use these commands does not imply they are not useful, and I have no idea how many Windows users really use them. How do you run R CMD build when you build R packages under Windows? You don't write C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/bin/i386/R.exe CMD build, do you? I have unusual needs, because I use 2 or 3 different versions of R every day. But if you're interested, the way I do it is to set up shell commands that reset the PATH appropriate to the version of R I want to use. A more usual user who always wants to use just one version from the command line could modify the PATH appropriately. I don't object to that, I just object to having R do it to unsuspecting users, because as Simon said, messing with the PATH can cause problems, and it's difficult for the R installer to know if messing with yours will cause trouble for you. In another message you asked about using Sweave. I almost never use Sweave() in R or R CMD Sweave at the command line; I have an appropriate command configured into my editors, and I run it from there. The PATH does not need to be involved. I think the reason we have to mess with the PATH variable for each single software package is that Windows is Not Unix, so you may hate Windows instead of a package that modifies your PATH variable. For the choice of i386 and x64, you can let the user decide which bin path to use. I believe the number of users who frequently switch back and forth is fairly small. I already pointed out why that is inappropriate for a lot of users. Duncan Murdoch 2. Under most circumstances I just keep the latest version of R. To maintain R code with old R versions will be more and more difficult with new features and changes coming in. Disk space is cheap, but time is not. I'm talking about the default installation directory here and I'm only wishing that the version string could be removed by default. Anyway, I think I will go to the batch files approach if these suggestions are going to be turned down. I just don't want to tell other people to run Rscript.bat under Windows and Rscript under *nix. I hope they can be consistent. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xiexieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Duncan Murdochmurdoch.dun...@gmail.com wrote: On 03/05/2011 7:44 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; Few Windows users use those commands. The ones who do are generally exactly the ones who know how to edit the PATH variable themselves. For most users (the ones who start R from the shortcut), there's no need to mess with the PATH variable. Personally, I hate programs that do that. And with R, it's now complicated, because there are 2 different directories holding executables: bin/i386 and bin/x64. (The bin directory also holds some, but that's just for back compatibility.) How could the installer know which of those to put in the PATH? At installation time, a user isn't going to know which one he/she needs. 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); Multiple installs give you the possibility of reproducing things that don't work in the latest R version. I think it's a good practice to keep multiple installs on your system if you have the space, and since disk space is cheap these days, that's not so uncommon. Duncan Murdoch I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. Thanks! Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xiexieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 8:11 AM, Duncan Murdoch murdoch.dun...@gmail.com wrote: On 11-05-03 11:25 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: 1. Few Windows users use these commands does not imply they are not useful, and I have no idea how many Windows users really use them. How do you run R CMD build when you build R packages under Windows? You don't write C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/bin/i386/R.exe CMD build, do you? I have unusual needs, because I use 2 or 3 different versions of R every day. But if you're interested, the way I do it is to set up shell commands that reset the PATH appropriate to the version of R I want to use. A more usual user who always wants to use just one version from the command line could modify the PATH appropriately. I don't object to that, I just object to having R do it to unsuspecting users, because as Simon said, messing with the PATH can cause problems, and it's difficult for the R installer to know if messing with yours will cause trouble for you. In another message you asked about using Sweave. I almost never use Sweave() in R or R CMD Sweave at the command line; I have an appropriate command configured into my editors, and I run it from there. The PATH does not need to be involved. I think the reason we have to mess with the PATH variable for each single software package is that Windows is Not Unix, so you may hate Windows instead of a package that modifies your PATH variable. For the choice of i386 and x64, you can let the user decide which bin path to use. I believe the number of users who frequently switch back and forth is fairly small. I already pointed out why that is inappropriate for a lot of users. The batchfiles handle this using Rversions.bat. Without arguments it lists the available R versions and with an argument it makes that the current version of R so that Rgui.bat, R.bat, invoke that version. Rversions.bat works by running the appropriate RSetReg.exe utility (which is a utility that is included in every R distribution). Of course if you just want to run a specific version of Rgui each version has a separate icon on the desktop so one can select the version of interest that way too. I personally keep about half a dozen back versions of R for the reasons others have mentioned and these would include one R-13.x version, one R-12.x version, etc. I literally use x in the name since only the most recent version in any such series is stored. That is, when a new R-2.13.x comes out I just install it over the existing R-2.13.x: Directory of C:\Program Files\R 31/03/2010 02:37 PMDIR R-2.10.x 01/06/2010 01:03 PMDIR R-2.11.x 22/03/2011 03:25 PMDIR R-2.12.x 26/04/2011 01:45 PMDIR R-2.13.x -- Statistics Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
-Original Message- From: r-devel-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-devel-bounces@r- project.org] On Behalf Of Gabor Grothendieck Sent: May-04-11 10:35 AM To: Duncan Murdoch Cc: R-devel Subject: Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows [snip] I personally keep about half a dozen back versions of R for the reasons others have mentioned and these would include one R-13.x version, one R- 12.x version, etc. I literally use x in the name since only the most recent version in any such series is stored. That is, when a new R-2.13.x comes out I just install it over the existing R-2.13.x: Directory of C:\Program Files\R 31/03/2010 02:37 PMDIR R-2.10.x 01/06/2010 01:03 PMDIR R-2.11.x 22/03/2011 03:25 PMDIR R-2.12.x 26/04/2011 01:45 PMDIR R-2.13.x Do you keep the RTools version specific to each version of R installed too? If so, how do you manage that so that each version of R finds the right version of RTools when it needs it? I don't use RTools much, but I need it to install some fo the packages I use from source since there are no binary distributions for them (for 64 bit Windows). I don't typically keep any more than two versions of R on my machine at any one time, but I don't remove an older version until I have verified that my R scripts work fine in the latest release. So usually there is only one version on my machine, but there will be two for a short while after a new release. But, my normal practice, as I describe here, would be disrupted if R's installer wrote R's bin path to my system path (in fact, I hate that for any software I use, even though in some cases there's no way to avoid it). Thanks Ted __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
If I am already able to open R, there is no need to post the request here. I want to be able to run R without knowing where it is from another software package. Your batch files fit in this purpose, and the only problem is it is a little bit slower since it takes time to look for R in the system via several approaches. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Gabor Grothendieck ggrothendi...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 1:04 AM, Yihui Xie x...@yihui.name wrote: Thanks! But I'm sorry this is not what I wanted. I just hope we can call R as a command like we do under *nix -- this will make it easier for *other* software packages to find R. You asked for an R program that gives the ability to run R.exe, Rscript.exe, etc. from the command line and that indeed is what it enables in the spawned session. -- Statistics Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Yihui Xie x...@yihui.name wrote: If I am already able to open R, there is no need to post the request here. I want to be able to run R without knowing where it is from another software package. Your batch files fit in this purpose, and the only problem is it is a little bit slower since it takes time to look for R in the system via several approaches. Not on my laptop (which is not particularly powerful). Rgui.bat brings up R nearly instantaneously. -- Statistics Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Ted Byers r.ted.by...@gmail.com wrote: -Original Message- From: r-devel-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-devel-bounces@r- project.org] On Behalf Of Gabor Grothendieck Sent: May-04-11 10:35 AM To: Duncan Murdoch Cc: R-devel Subject: Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows [snip] I personally keep about half a dozen back versions of R for the reasons others have mentioned and these would include one R-13.x version, one R- 12.x version, etc. I literally use x in the name since only the most recent version in any such series is stored. That is, when a new R-2.13.x comes out I just install it over the existing R-2.13.x: Directory of C:\Program Files\R 31/03/2010 02:37 PM DIR R-2.10.x 01/06/2010 01:03 PM DIR R-2.11.x 22/03/2011 03:25 PM DIR R-2.12.x 26/04/2011 01:45 PM DIR R-2.13.x Do you keep the RTools version specific to each version of R installed too? If so, how do you manage that so that each version of R finds the right version of RTools when it needs it? I don't use RTools much, but I need it to install some fo the packages I use from source since there are no binary distributions for them (for 64 bit Windows). I don't typically keep any more than two versions of R on my machine at any one time, but I don't remove an older version until I have verified that my R scripts work fine in the latest release. So usually there is only one version on my machine, but there will be two for a short while after a new release. But, my normal practice, as I describe here, would be disrupted if R's installer wrote R's bin path to my system path (in fact, I hate that for any software I use, even though in some cases there's no way to avoid it). Thanks Ted Typically I do my development on the latest version of R so I only need one version of Rtools. The older versions of R are just for checking older software. There is a program RtoolsVersion.bat in the batchfiles that will tell you which version of Rtools you have (which it finds by first looking in the registry and if not found there looks for an R_TOOLS environment variable and if still not found looks for C:\Rtools): C:\tmp2RtoolsVersion RtoolsVersion.bat: Rtools found at: c:\Rtools Rtools version 2.13.0.1901 (There is also Rtools.bat that will temporarily add Rtools to your path (although if you use Rcmd.bat, R.bat, etc. then they can find Rtools without it being on the path so mostly one does not need to use Rtools.bat). If people wanted to have multiple versions of Rtools, Rtools would ideally have a tool similar to R's own RSetReg.exe . Another possibility would be to turn Rtools into an R package so that R's library mechanism handled the versioning. Regarding permanently putting R on the path, I agree that it would be annoying having R permanently there and for that reason the batchfiles do not do that. -- Statistics Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
In terms of a personal use, that is absolutely fine. From the perspective of a developer, you cannot stop a user from upgrading to newer versions. Perhaps it is a matter of personal taste; I'm worried more about adapting to latest versions than maintaining old versions. If the new versions works fine, I will remove all the old versions. I have never run into troubles in which I have no choice but to use the old version of R. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:46 AM, Wincent ronggui.hu...@gmail.com wrote: I also prefer to keep the old versions. Sometimes, I have spent time to set up the system with older version and don't want to update to the latest (e.g. the new RGtk2 needs updated GTk2 as well) because the older still works and I don't need the new features. Regards Ronggui __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
My suggestion was to mimic *nix systems: put the executable binaries in the same place *by default* (e.g. /usr/bin/ or /usr/local/bin). Why isn't the default bin path for R under *nix something like /usr/bin/R-2.13.0/? If the users want to install multiple versions, they still have the choice to install them elsewhere. I'm not denying the possible necessity of having multiple versions in a system. In my opinion, the default values should be set according to probabilities: is it more likely for a user to use multiple versions or a single version of R? Of course, all of you are developers and the former probability might be higher, but I don't think many users will run the script A with R 2.12.1 and script B with R 2.13.0. The most typical situation I have seen is, (Windows) people install R and will forget to update it forever. I often have to urge our IT admin to update R in our department from a version released long long ago. You may argue my samples are not representative. Anyway, I can accept the default version string if nobody agrees with me. I do use Emacs every day. It's nice, I totally agree. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 2:02 AM, Martin Maechler maech...@stat.math.ethz.ch wrote: Note to Yihui Xie: I agree 100% with the other R core members (Duncan, Simon, Thomas) who already explained why it is *GOOD* to install R in version-named directories by default. BTW: If you use ESS (Emacs Speaks Statistics) on Windows, it now automatically(*) finds all versions of R (* well, less generally, probably than Gabor's batch files; IIRC, we assume that the R versions were installed in the default place), and provides them, both the 32bit and 64bit versions, in the ESS menu, or via M-x R- [Tab completion] Very nice, very useful in my eyes. Martin __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On May 4, 2011, at 12:00 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: My suggestion was to mimic *nix systems: put the executable binaries in the same place *by default* (e.g. /usr/bin/ or /usr/local/bin). Except that there is not such thing on Windows! The closest to that is the system folder which is off limits for applications. Why isn't the default bin path for R under *nix something like /usr/bin/R-2.13.0/? It is on some unices (and most system-wide installations in practice) - but that's beside the point. Unix has a well-defined FHS so regardless where you install R you can always put a symlink into /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. Windows has no such conventions so Gabor's solution is pretty much what you claim to want (and note that in unix you're exactly running a batch script with its rhome embedded to start R!). Even on unix you don't mess with PATH to select the R version to use. If the users want to install multiple versions, they still have the choice to install them elsewhere. I'm not denying the possible necessity of having multiple versions in a system. In my opinion, the default values should be set according to probabilities: is it more likely for a user to use multiple versions or a single version of R? Of course, all of you are developers and the former probability might be higher, but I don't think many users will run the script A with R 2.12.1 and script B with R 2.13.0. The most typical situation I have seen is, (Windows) people install R and will forget to update it forever. I often have to urge our IT admin to update R in our department from a version released long long ago. You may argue my samples are not representative. Anyway, I can accept the default version string if nobody agrees with me. Cheers, S I do use Emacs every day. It's nice, I totally agree. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 2:02 AM, Martin Maechler maech...@stat.math.ethz.ch wrote: Note to Yihui Xie: I agree 100% with the other R core members (Duncan, Simon, Thomas) who already explained why it is *GOOD* to install R in version-named directories by default. BTW: If you use ESS (Emacs Speaks Statistics) on Windows, it now automatically(*) finds all versions of R (* well, less generally, probably than Gabor's batch files; IIRC, we assume that the R versions were installed in the default place), and provides them, both the 32bit and 64bit versions, in the ESS menu, or via M-x R- [Tab completion] Very nice, very useful in my eyes. Martin __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
There are plenty of good reasons for non-developers to run different versions of R. For instance, I care a lot about reproducibility. With every new release of R, lots of things change. With every new release of the packages I use, lots of things change. All of my analyses are performed using Sweave, and every report includes a call to sessionInfo so that the versions are recorded in the final report. If I have to go back and tweak something in a report (say, to regenerate a figure in a format more suitable for publication), I do not want the rest of the analysis to change. So I have to run the correct (possibly older) version of R. All of the stat analysts that we train follow the same practice. As a result, I am strongly opposed to an installation that automatically mucks with the path to R. Kevin On 5/4/2011 11:00 AM, Yihui Xie wrote: My suggestion was to mimic *nix systems: put the executable binaries in the same place *by default* (e.g. /usr/bin/ or /usr/local/bin). Why isn't the default bin path for R under *nix something like /usr/bin/R-2.13.0/? If the users want to install multiple versions, they still have the choice to install them elsewhere. I'm not denying the possible necessity of having multiple versions in a system. In my opinion, the default values should be set according to probabilities: is it more likely for a user to use multiple versions or a single version of R? Of course, all of you are developers and the former probability might be higher, but I don't think many users will run the script A with R 2.12.1 and script B with R 2.13.0. The most typical situation I have seen is, (Windows) people install R and will forget to update it forever. I often have to urge our IT admin to update R in our department from a version released long long ago. You may argue my samples are not representative. Anyway, I can accept the default version string if nobody agrees with me. I do use Emacs every day. It's nice, I totally agree. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xiexieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
Yihui Xie-2 wrote: Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; On one hand it certainly would be nice to have this as an option similar to what the RTools installer does. For the 32/64 bit decision, perhaps RHOME/bin could be placed on the PATH and bin/R.exe turned into a bin/R.bat that calls bin/i386/R.exe, bin/x64/R.exe depending on the Windows architecture. On the other hand, the grizzled developer in me is saying this is a teaching moment. If someone is using a programming language they should know what an environment variable is and how to set it. Admittingly, setting environment variables is a PITA on Windows compared to UNIX. Here's a great freeware tool I have found that makes it so much easier: http://www.rapidee.com Another issue is that many Windows machines are locked down in such a way that environment variables cannot be set permanently. To deal with this, I carry a USB stick that has R installed on it and a batch script that `setx`es environment variables for me. Combined with an `autorun.inf` script, this basically lets me plug my USB stick into a Windows machine and get to work without worrying about how careful the sysadmin was when they set up the tools I like to use (or if they even bothered to include the tools I like to use). A good video tutorial for setting up autorun.inf from Tinkernut.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFlgddjOPpw Some of the things in that video are outdated and the overall goal is to show how they could be used for nefarious purposes, but the part about converting a `.bat` script to a `.exe` binary and setting up an autorun.inf to execute the result is solid. Combine with MikTeX Portable and you should be able to Sweave from anywhere. Yihui Xie-2 wrote: 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. As a package developer I rather like this---I can have multiple versions of R installed and easily set up my testsuite such that it loops through each one and executes the tests. -Charlie - Charlie Sharpsteen Undergraduate-- Environmental Resources Engineering Humboldt State University -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Wishlist-write-R-s-bin-path-to-the-PATH-variable-and-remove-the-version-string-in-the-installation-ds-tp3493922p3496533.html Sent from the R devel mailing list archive at Nabble.com. __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
First, you are still able to install multiple versions of R to any places that you want -- I was suggesting a default place to install R under Windows. If you remember the process of installing R under Windows, there is a step in which you can choose where to install R. Second, to modify the PATH variable won't affect reproducibility. It seems people have got a wrong impression that after the PATH variable is modified, we are forced to use the single version of R under the PATH. You are still free to use any versions of R. The only effect is that if you run R as a command, it will be the version which is under the PATH. Do you run your Sweave documents via R CMD Sweave? If not, this will not affect you. If people are really uncomfortable with the PATH variable being modified, we can make this *optional* just like what Rtools does. If we are so worried about all these kinds of problems, do we need to worry about Rtools as well? Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 1:33 PM, Kevin R. Coombes kevin.r.coom...@gmail.com wrote: There are plenty of good reasons for non-developers to run different versions of R. For instance, I care a lot about reproducibility. With every new release of R, lots of things change. With every new release of the packages I use, lots of things change. All of my analyses are performed using Sweave, and every report includes a call to sessionInfo so that the versions are recorded in the final report. If I have to go back and tweak something in a report (say, to regenerate a figure in a format more suitable for publication), I do not want the rest of the analysis to change. So I have to run the correct (possibly older) version of R. All of the stat analysts that we train follow the same practice. As a result, I am strongly opposed to an installation that automatically mucks with the path to R. Kevin On 5/4/2011 11:00 AM, Yihui Xie wrote: My suggestion was to mimic *nix systems: put the executable binaries in the same place *by default* (e.g. /usr/bin/ or /usr/local/bin). Why isn't the default bin path for R under *nix something like /usr/bin/R-2.13.0/? If the users want to install multiple versions, they still have the choice to install them elsewhere. I'm not denying the possible necessity of having multiple versions in a system. In my opinion, the default values should be set according to probabilities: is it more likely for a user to use multiple versions or a single version of R? Of course, all of you are developers and the former probability might be higher, but I don't think many users will run the script A with R 2.12.1 and script B with R 2.13.0. The most typical situation I have seen is, (Windows) people install R and will forget to update it forever. I often have to urge our IT admin to update R in our department from a version released long long ago. You may argue my samples are not representative. Anyway, I can accept the default version string if nobody agrees with me. I do use Emacs every day. It's nice, I totally agree. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xiexieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
1. I know there is not such a thing; that why I said mimic and the same place (***/R/bin instead of ***/R/R-x.x.x/bin). 2. Yes, I never mess with the PATH variable under *nix, because R is installed to /usr/local/bin/ (or /usr/bin/) *by default*, which is already in the PATH variable. Otherwise extra efforts will be required to run R as a single letter R -- this is what I wish we were able to do under Windows. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Simon Urbanek simon.urba...@r-project.org wrote: On May 4, 2011, at 12:00 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: My suggestion was to mimic *nix systems: put the executable binaries in the same place *by default* (e.g. /usr/bin/ or /usr/local/bin). Except that there is not such thing on Windows! The closest to that is the system folder which is off limits for applications. Why isn't the default bin path for R under *nix something like /usr/bin/R-2.13.0/? It is on some unices (and most system-wide installations in practice) - but that's beside the point. Unix has a well-defined FHS so regardless where you install R you can always put a symlink into /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. Windows has no such conventions so Gabor's solution is pretty much what you claim to want (and note that in unix you're exactly running a batch script with its rhome embedded to start R!). Even on unix you don't mess with PATH to select the R version to use. __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
[Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. Thanks! Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Yihui Xie x...@yihui.name wrote: Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. The above seems very awkward. If you want to do it temporarily each time you use R its going to be MUCH slower than using batch files since you will have to start up R and then run an R program. To do it permanently implies mucking with your system settings and leaving it in a changed state and that seems worse than the batch file approach which requires no such permanent change. Your (2) is unnecessary using the batch files since they automatically find R regardless of what you name the directory. In other situations if you want to set the path using R you already need to know the path to R in order to run R in the first place and if you know the path to R in order to run it why do you need to set the path? -- Statistics Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On 03/05/2011 7:44 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; Few Windows users use those commands. The ones who do are generally exactly the ones who know how to edit the PATH variable themselves. For most users (the ones who start R from the shortcut), there's no need to mess with the PATH variable. Personally, I hate programs that do that. And with R, it's now complicated, because there are 2 different directories holding executables: bin/i386 and bin/x64. (The bin directory also holds some, but that's just for back compatibility.) How could the installer know which of those to put in the PATH? At installation time, a user isn't going to know which one he/she needs. 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); Multiple installs give you the possibility of reproducing things that don't work in the latest R version. I think it's a good practice to keep multiple installs on your system if you have the space, and since disk space is cheap these days, that's not so uncommon. Duncan Murdoch I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. Thanks! Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xiexieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
1. Few Windows users use these commands does not imply they are not useful, and I have no idea how many Windows users really use them. How do you run R CMD build when you build R packages under Windows? You don't write C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/bin/i386/R.exe CMD build, do you? I think the reason we have to mess with the PATH variable for each single software package is that Windows is Not Unix, so you may hate Windows instead of a package that modifies your PATH variable. For the choice of i386 and x64, you can let the user decide which bin path to use. I believe the number of users who frequently switch back and forth is fairly small. 2. Under most circumstances I just keep the latest version of R. To maintain R code with old R versions will be more and more difficult with new features and changes coming in. Disk space is cheap, but time is not. I'm talking about the default installation directory here and I'm only wishing that the version string could be removed by default. Anyway, I think I will go to the batch files approach if these suggestions are going to be turned down. I just don't want to tell other people to run Rscript.bat under Windows and Rscript under *nix. I hope they can be consistent. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Duncan Murdoch murdoch.dun...@gmail.com wrote: On 03/05/2011 7:44 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; Few Windows users use those commands. The ones who do are generally exactly the ones who know how to edit the PATH variable themselves. For most users (the ones who start R from the shortcut), there's no need to mess with the PATH variable. Personally, I hate programs that do that. And with R, it's now complicated, because there are 2 different directories holding executables: bin/i386 and bin/x64. (The bin directory also holds some, but that's just for back compatibility.) How could the installer know which of those to put in the PATH? At installation time, a user isn't going to know which one he/she needs. 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); Multiple installs give you the possibility of reproducing things that don't work in the latest R version. I think it's a good practice to keep multiple installs on your system if you have the space, and since disk space is cheap these days, that's not so uncommon. Duncan Murdoch I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. Thanks! Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xiexieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On May 3, 2011, at 11:25 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: 1. Few Windows users use these commands does not imply they are not useful, and I have no idea how many Windows users really use them. How do you run R CMD build when you build R packages under Windows? You don't write C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/bin/i386/R.exe CMD build, do you? Yes, of course. It's the safest way and really easy if you use a decent manager (I hope you're not typing your packages tar ball names by hand, either). Adding things to PATH on Windows (unlike unix) has the unwanted consequence that all hell breaks loose due to PATH overriding DLL locations so you really don't want to mess with it. I think the reason we have to mess with the PATH variable for each single software package is that Windows is Not Unix, so you may hate Windows instead of a package that modifies your PATH variable. For the choice of i386 and x64, you can let the user decide which bin path to use. I believe the number of users who frequently switch back and forth is fairly small. 2. Under most circumstances I just keep the latest version of R. To maintain R code with old R versions will be more and more difficult with new features and changes coming in. Disk space is cheap, but time is not. I'm talking about the default installation directory here and I'm only wishing that the version string could be removed by default. It can be already now, so I really have no idea what you're complaining about. If that's what you want, drop the the version and keep the one unversioned directory in your PATH and Bob's your uncle. Cheers, Simon Anyway, I think I will go to the batch files approach if these suggestions are going to be turned down. I just don't want to tell other people to run Rscript.bat under Windows and Rscript under *nix. I hope they can be consistent. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Duncan Murdoch murdoch.dun...@gmail.com wrote: On 03/05/2011 7:44 PM, Yihui Xie wrote: Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; Few Windows users use those commands. The ones who do are generally exactly the ones who know how to edit the PATH variable themselves. For most users (the ones who start R from the shortcut), there's no need to mess with the PATH variable. Personally, I hate programs that do that. And with R, it's now complicated, because there are 2 different directories holding executables: bin/i386 and bin/x64. (The bin directory also holds some, but that's just for back compatibility.) How could the installer know which of those to put in the PATH? At installation time, a user isn't going to know which one he/she needs. 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); Multiple installs give you the possibility of reproducing things that don't work in the latest R version. I think it's a good practice to keep multiple installs on your system if you have the space, and since disk space is cheap these days, that's not so uncommon. Duncan Murdoch I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. Thanks! Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xiexieyi...@gmail.com Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name Department of Statistics, Iowa State University 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Yihui Xie x...@yihui.name wrote: Hi, I guess this issue must have been brought forward long time ago, but I still hope you can consider under Windows (during installation): 1. put R's bin path in the PATH variable of the system so that we can use the commands R and Rscript more easily; 2. remove the version string like R-2.13.0 in the default installation directory, e.g. only use a directory like C:/Program Files/R/ instead of C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/; I know many people just follow the default setting when installing R, and this version string will often lead to many (unnecessary) copies of R in the system and brings difficulty to the first issue (several possible bin directories); I'm aware of some existing efforts in overcoming the difficulty of calling R under Windows like the R batch files project (http://code.google.com/p/batchfiles/), but I believe this is better to be solved in R directly. Although I have some misgivings about this just to be sure we have all based covered I have placed an R package called cmd in the batchfiles download area (go to http://batchfiles.googlecode.com and click on download tab). Install the package and then every time you wish to use R.exe, Rscript.exe, etc. start up R and run library(cmd) cmd32() # or cmd64() and it will spawn a Windows console session with the appropriate path variable set. -- Statistics Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
Thanks! But I'm sorry this is not what I wanted. I just hope we can
call R as a command like we do under *nix -- this will make it easier
for *other* software packages to find R.
BTW, for the cmd package: if we were evil enough, we can directly
execute this in R to permanently set the PATH variable:
system(paste('setx PATH ', normalizePath(R.home('bin')), ';',
Sys.getenv('PATH'), '', sep = ''))
Nobody will feel comfortable with it, though.
Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie xieyi...@gmail.com
Phone: 515-294-2465 Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA
On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 11:41 PM, Gabor Grothendieck
ggrothendi...@gmail.com wrote:
Although I have some misgivings about this just to be sure we have all
based covered I have placed an R package called cmd in the batchfiles
download area (go to http://batchfiles.googlecode.com and click on
download tab).
Install the package and then every time you wish to use R.exe,
Rscript.exe, etc. start up R and run
library(cmd)
cmd32() # or cmd64()
and it will spawn a Windows console session with the appropriate path
variable set.
--
Statistics Software Consulting
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com
__
R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Yihui Xie x...@yihui.name wrote: 1. Few Windows users use these commands does not imply they are not useful, and I have no idea how many Windows users really use them. How do you run R CMD build when you build R packages under Windows? You don't write C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/bin/i386/R.exe CMD build, do you? I think the reason we have to mess with the PATH variable for each single software package is that Windows is Not Unix, so you may hate Windows instead of a package that modifies your PATH variable. For the choice of i386 and x64, you can let the user decide which bin path to use. I believe the number of users who frequently switch back and forth is fairly small. 2. Under most circumstances I just keep the latest version of R. To maintain R code with old R versions will be more and more difficult with new features and changes coming in. Disk space is cheap, but time is not. I keep old versions for basically the same reasons you don't -- that is, I have analyses that ran under the old versions, and I can be sure they will give the same answer a year later if I keep the old versions. This isn't so much because of changes in R as because of changes in packages. -thomas -- Thomas Lumley Professor of Biostatistics University of Auckland __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 1:04 AM, Yihui Xie x...@yihui.name wrote: Thanks! But I'm sorry this is not what I wanted. I just hope we can call R as a command like we do under *nix -- this will make it easier for *other* software packages to find R. You asked for an R program that gives the ability to run R.exe, Rscript.exe, etc. from the command line and that indeed is what it enables in the spawned session. -- Statistics Software Consulting GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc. tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
Re: [Rd] Wishlist: write R's bin path to the PATH variable and remove the version string in the installation dir under Windows
I also prefer to keep the old versions. Sometimes, I have spent time to set up the system with older version and don't want to update to the latest (e.g. the new RGtk2 needs updated GTk2 as well) because the older still works and I don't need the new features. Regards Ronggui On 4 May 2011 13:26, Thomas Lumley tlum...@uw.edu wrote: On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Yihui Xie x...@yihui.name wrote: 1. Few Windows users use these commands does not imply they are not useful, and I have no idea how many Windows users really use them. How do you run R CMD build when you build R packages under Windows? You don't write C:/Program Files/R/R-2.13.0/bin/i386/R.exe CMD build, do you? I think the reason we have to mess with the PATH variable for each single software package is that Windows is Not Unix, so you may hate Windows instead of a package that modifies your PATH variable. For the choice of i386 and x64, you can let the user decide which bin path to use. I believe the number of users who frequently switch back and forth is fairly small. 2. Under most circumstances I just keep the latest version of R. To maintain R code with old R versions will be more and more difficult with new features and changes coming in. Disk space is cheap, but time is not. I keep old versions for basically the same reasons you don't -- that is, I have analyses that ran under the old versions, and I can be sure they will give the same answer a year later if I keep the old versions. This isn't so much because of changes in R as because of changes in packages. -thomas -- Thomas Lumley Professor of Biostatistics University of Auckland __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel -- Wincent Ronggui HUANG Sociology Department of Fudan University PhD of City University of Hong Kong http://asrr.r-forge.r-project.org/rghuang.html __ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
