R devel - Jan 2007 - help.start()'s error redirection fails to hide mozilla's "No running window found" message (PR#9452)

Full_Name: John Jorgensen
Version: 2.4.0
OS: Solaris 9
Submission from: (NULL) (142.3.169.170)


This is not a serious problem, but while trying to understand some difficulties
that R had finding our copy of mozilla, I noticed that the browseURL() function
defined in help.start.R includes the lines:

    system(paste(browser, remoteCmd, "2>&1 >/dev/null ||",
                 browser, quotedUrl, "&"))

I assume the intent is to hide the "No running window found" or
equivalent
message that the remoteCmd might print before trying to start a new instance of
the browser.  On  the shells I've tried, though, you need to reverse the
order
of the redirections to achieve this, i.e.:  ">dev/null 2>&1"
instead of "2>&1
>/dev/null".
Apologies if I've misunderstood your intent, or if there are other shells
where
you need the order you've used.

>>>>> "jorgnsn" == jorgnsn  <jorgnsn at
lcd.uregina.ca>
>>>>>     on Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:52:27 +0100 (CET) writes:
    jorgnsn> Full_Name: John Jorgensen
    jorgnsn> Version: 2.4.0
    jorgnsn> OS: Solaris 9
    jorgnsn> Submission from: (NULL) (142.3.169.170)


    jorgnsn> This is not a serious problem, but while trying to
    jorgnsn> understand some difficulties that R had finding our
    jorgnsn> copy of mozilla, I noticed that the browseURL()
    jorgnsn> function defined in help.start.R includes the
    jorgnsn> lines:

    jorgnsn> system(paste(browser, remoteCmd, "2>&1 >/dev/null
||",
    jorgnsn> browser, quotedUrl, "&"))

    jorgnsn> I assume the intent is to hide the "No running
    jorgnsn> window found" or equivalent message that the
    jorgnsn> remoteCmd might print before trying to start a new
    jorgnsn> instance of the browser.  On the shells I've tried,
    jorgnsn> though, you need to reverse the order of the
    jorgnsn> redirections to achieve this, i.e.: ">dev/null
    jorgnsn> 2>&1" instead of "2>&1 >
/dev/null".

    jorgnsn> Apologies if I've misunderstood your intent, or if
    jorgnsn> there are other shells where you need the order
    jorgnsn> you've used.

I don't think there are. It looks like you are entirely right,
and we use the correct order "> /dev/null 2>&1" in quite a
few
other places.

Thank you for the report.
Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich