R devel - Jan 2007 - Perhaps a stupid question about clipboards....

I have a stupid question. Why is the clipboard accessed through file()
and not, say, a clipboard() connection? Is there a good reason for
this or is it simply historical?

-- 
Byron Ellis (byron.ellis at gmail.com)
"Oook" -- The Librarian

>>>>> "Byron" == Byron Ellis <ellis at
stat.harvard.edu>
>>>>>     on Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:25:45 -0800 writes:
    Byron> I have a stupid question. 
not stupid.

    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?

Martin

On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Byron Ellis wrote:
> I have a stupid question. Why is the clipboard accessed through file()
> and not, say, a clipboard() connection? Is there a good reason for
> this or is it simply historical?
You can in most uses replace file("clipboard") by
"clipboard".

In fact internally file, clipboard and url connections are separate (and 
show up so under showConnections), but all three can be accessed via 
file().

-- 
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