R devel - Mar 2007 - fortune() in .Rprofile conflicts with R CMD INSTALL

Hello,

This is about fortune package, but I think that might be related also to
base R, so I am sending to package maintainer and R-devel list.

I have the following in my .Rprofile to break monotony of code writing

library(utils)
library(fortunes)
fortune()
detach("package:fortunes")

so I get a fortune every time I start R. It seems that this conflicts
with R CMD INSTALL in latest R-devel on Linux. Two things can happen:

1. R CMD INSTALL fails
----------------------------------------------------------------------

$ R-devel CMD INSTALL connectedness
* Installing to library '
My preference goes with the numbering scheme attributed to a tribe on some
island in the Pacific which consists of a 'factor' with four levels:
'one',
'two', 'three', and 'lots'. Hence, I'd go with
'lots of R users'.
   -- Dirk Eddelbuettel (in a discussion about trying to estimate the
number of
      R users)
      R-help (April 2004)

/usr/local/R-devel/lib/R/library'
ERROR: cannot write to or create directory '
My preference goes with the numbering scheme attributed to a tribe on some
island in the Pacific which consists of a 'factor' with four levels:
'one',
'two', 'three', and 'lots'. Hence, I'd go with
'lots of R users'.
   -- Dirk Eddelbuettel (in a discussion about trying to estimate the
number of
      R users)
      R-help (April 2004)

/usr/local/R-devel/lib/R/library'

2. R CMD INSTALL installs package in wrong place - see bellow
----------------------------------------------------------------------

$ R-devel CMD INSTALL connectedness
* Installing to library '
If you imagine that this pen is Trellis, then Lattice is not this pen.
   -- Paul Murrell (on the difference of Lattice (which eventually was
called
      grid) and Trellis)
      DSC 2001, Wien (March 2001)

/usr/local/R-devel/lib/R/library'
* Installing *source* package 'connectedness' ...
** R
** data
** inst
cat: /home/ggorjan/programs/R/devel/r-ggorjan/: Is a directory
cat: If: No such file or directory
cat: you: No such file or directory
cat: imagine: No such file or directory
cat: that: No such file or directory
cat: this: No such file or directory
cat: pen: No such file or directory
cat: is: No such file or directory
cat: Trellis,: No such file or directory
cat: then: No such file or directory
cat: Lattice: No such file or directory
cat: is: No such file or directory
cat: not: No such file or directory
cat: this: No such file or directory
cat: pen.: No such file or directory
cat: Paul: No such file or directory
cat: Murrell: No such file or directory
cat: (on: No such file or directory
cat: the: No such file or directory
cat: difference: No such file or directory
cat: of: No such file or directory
cat: Lattice: No such file or directory
cat: (which: No such file or directory
cat: eventually: No such file or directory
cat: was: No such file or directory
cat: called: No such file or directory
cat: grid): No such file or directory
cat: and: No such file or directory
cat: Trellis): No such file or directory
cat: DSC: No such file or directory
cat: 2001,: No such file or directory
cat: Wien: No such file or directory
cat: (March: No such file or directory
cat: 2001): No such file or directory
cat: /usr/local/R-devel/lib/R/library/connectedness/R/connectedness: No
such file or directory
** help
 >>> Building/Updating help pages for package 'connectedness'
     Formats: text html latex example
  connect                           text    html    latex
  connectedness                     text    html    latex   example
  levelsBySubset                    text    html    latex   example
  plot.connectedness                text    html    latex   example
  subset.connectedness              text    html    latex   example
** building package indices ...
* DONE (connectedness)

$ tree -d
.
|-- \012If you imagine that this pen is Trellis, then Lattice is not
this pen.\012   -- Paul Murrell (on the difference of Lattice (which
eventually was called\012      grid) and Trellis)\012      DSC 2001,
Wien (March 2001)\012\012
|   `-- usr
|       `-- local
|           `-- R-devel
|               `-- lib
|                   `-- R
|                       `-- library
|                           `-- connectedness
|                               |-- Meta
|                               |-- R
|                               |-- R-ex
|                               |-- data
|                               |-- doc
|                               |-- help
|                               |-- html
|                               |-- latex
|                               |-- man
|                               `-- unitTests
|-- connectedness
|   |-- R
|   |-- data
|   |-- inst
|   |   |-- doc
|   |   `-- unitTests
|   |-- man
|   `-- tests
...

Looks like a bug to me.

Gregor

Gregor Gorjanc <gregor.gorjanc at bfro.uni-lj.si> writes:
> Hello,
>
> This is about fortune package, but I think that might be related also to
> base R, so I am sending to package maintainer and R-devel list.
>
> I have the following in my .Rprofile to break monotony of code writing
>
> library(utils)
> library(fortunes)
> fortune()
> detach("package:fortunes")
>
The quick fix for you is, I believe,

    if (interactive()) {
        library(fortunes)
        fortune()
        detach("package:fortunes")
    }

Whether something could be changed so that R's output doesn't confuse
itself and gcc when doing R CMD INSTALL, seems like it should be
possible.

+ seth

-- 
Seth Falcon | Computational Biology | Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
http://bioconductor.org