R devel - Jun 2019 - Making R CMD nicer

Hello everyone,

First time posting in the R mailing lists so hopefully this works well.
I noticed when I type `R CMD` I get this unhelpful message:

/usr/lib/R/bin/Rcmd: 60: shift: can't shift that many

This probably comes from the file Rcmd.in. This should be easily fixed by
checking $#.

I also think it would be nice if `R CMD help` showed the usable commands.
In fact I think the CMD syntax is unnecessary since the man page shows
using R with an infile or outfile must use redirection, so the syntax can
be simply "R install" (like in git).

Thanks,
Jason

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> First time posting in the R mailing lists so hopefully this works well.
> I noticed when I type `R CMD` I get this unhelpful message:
> /usr/lib/R/bin/Rcmd: 60: shift: can't shift that many
I wasn't able to reproduce this.
Maybe it's a Linux thing.
But then, I suspect you've omitted some of your input.
> I also think it would be nice if `R CMD help` showed the usable commands.
What do you mean...
All of the following give you the "usable commands":
> R CMD
> R CMD -h
> R CMD --help
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For the record, this is Linux R-devel:

root at 4bef68c16864:~# R CMD
/opt/R-devel/lib/R/bin/Rcmd: 60: shift: can't shift that many
root at 4bef68c16864:~# R CMD -h
/opt/R-devel/lib/R/bin/Rcmd: 62: exec: -h: not found
root at 4bef68c16864:~# R CMD --help
/opt/R-devel/lib/R/bin/Rcmd: 62: exec: --help: not found

This is R-release on macOS:

? R CMD
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/Rcmd: line 62:
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/: is a directory
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/Rcmd: line 62: exec:
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/: cannot execute:
Undefined error: 0
? R CMD -h
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/Rcmd: line 62: exec: -h:
invalid option
exec: usage: exec [-cl] [-a name] file [redirection ...]
? R CMD --help
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/Rcmd: line 62: exec: --:
invalid option
exec: usage: exec [-cl] [-a name] file [redirection ...]

On Windows you indeed get a useful list of commands and more helpful tips.

Gabor


On Sun, Jun 30, 2019 at 11:36 PM Abby Spurdle <spurdle.a at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> > First time posting in the R mailing lists so hopefully this works
well.
> > I noticed when I type `R CMD` I get this unhelpful message:
> > /usr/lib/R/bin/Rcmd: 60: shift: can't shift that many
>
> I wasn't able to reproduce this.
> Maybe it's a Linux thing.
> But then, I suspect you've omitted some of your input.
>
> > I also think it would be nice if `R CMD help` showed the usable
commands.
>
> What do you mean...
> All of the following give you the "usable commands":
>
> > R CMD
> > R CMD -h
> > R CMD --help
>
>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel