R help - Feb 2013 - using a personal template for new R scripts

Does anyone know if there's an easy facility to create and specify a
template file to be used for new R scripts?

I found myself creating this function which works well (in RStudio on Windows).

newR = function(filename=tempfile(tmpdir='.',fileext='.R'),
open=TRUE) {
  template = paste(Sys.getenv('R_USER'), 'R_template.R',
sep='/')
  lines = readLines(template)
  lines = sub('Sys.time', format(Sys.time(), '%A, %d %B %Y'),
lines)
  lines = sub('getwd', getwd(), lines)
  lines = sub('R.version.string', R.version.string, lines)
  writeLines(lines, filename)
  if (open) shell.exec(filename)
  filename
}

Rather than the default of an empty file, it would be good practice to start
with a structured template script.  Such a template might contain opening
comments (author, date, project folder, aims, inputs, outputs etc.) and section
comment headings for the various components of what a script does (load
packages, get data, process data, produce outputs).

cheers,
    Steve

On 02/28/2013 05:40 PM, Steve Taylor wrote:
> Does anyone know if there's an easy facility to create and specify a
template file to be used for new R scripts?
>
> I found myself creating this function which works well (in RStudio on
Windows).
>
> newR = function(filename=tempfile(tmpdir='.',fileext='.R'),
open=TRUE) {
>    template = paste(Sys.getenv('R_USER'), 'R_template.R',
sep='/')
>    lines = readLines(template)
>    lines = sub('Sys.time', format(Sys.time(), '%A, %d %B
%Y'), lines)
>    lines = sub('getwd', getwd(), lines)
>    lines = sub('R.version.string', R.version.string, lines)
>    writeLines(lines, filename)
>    if (open) shell.exec(filename)
>    filename
> }
>
> Rather than the default of an empty file, it would be good practice to
start with a structured template script.  Such a template might contain opening
comments (author, date, project folder, aims, inputs, outputs etc.) and section
comment headings for the various components of what a script does (load
packages, get data, process data, produce outputs).
>
The ProjectTemplate CRAN module might be helpful. I don't know if it 
works well with RStudio, but it does offer an entire project template:
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ProjectTemplate/index.html