R devel - Sep 2008 - Cross-platform function availability

Hi all,

Is there any way to determine which functions are available on which
platforms?  For example, winProgr essBar (and related functions) are
only available on Windows, but what about tkProgressBar and
txtProgressBar?  Is there any way to figure out which functions are
only available on certain platforms, without installing R on that
platform and checking?

Thanks,

Hadley

-- 
http://had.co.nz/

On 9/15/2008 11:42 AM, hadley wickham wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Is there any way to determine which functions are available on which
> platforms?  For example, winProgr essBar (and related functions) are
> only available on Windows, but what about tkProgressBar and
> txtProgressBar?  Is there any way to figure out which functions are
> only available on certain platforms, without installing R on that
> platform and checking?
Generally I think the only reliable way is to look at the source. 
Things in "windows" subdirs, or marked off with "#ifdef
windows" (in Rd)
or "#ifdef Win32" (in C) are for windows only.  Probably our 
documentation should point out when something is platform-specific, and 
frequently it does, but I don't think it is completely consistent in this.

Duncan

I think it is a little more complex than just installing and checking. 
tkProgressBar uses tcltk which works on the major platforms (unix/linux, mac,
windows), but only if tk is installed and available.  I believe that on mac tk
is only available if X11 is used and if I remember correctly, if R is run by
clicking an icon, then X11 is not used (but it is if run from a command window).
So checking may say it does not work (when it does in a different way), or that
it does work, but the end user may not get it to work.

I believe that txtProgressBar works on any version that can produce text (all
that I know of), but you may get some funny results if output is being sent
directly to a file.

More generally, from the packages link on your favorite CRAN mirror, there is a
link to package test results that show the results of testing the packages on
different platforms that may give some idea if the function works on the tested
platforms (if the documentation for the function has examples not wrapped in
dontrun commands or other tests).

Hope this helps,

--
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
(801) 408-8111


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-devel-bounces at r-project.org
> [mailto:r-devel-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of hadley wickham
> Sent: Monday, September 15, 2008 9:43 AM
> To: r-devel at r-project.org
> Subject: [Rd] Cross-platform function availability
>
> Hi all,
>
> Is there any way to determine which functions are available
> on which platforms?  For example, winProgr essBar (and
> related functions) are only available on Windows, but what
> about tkProgressBar and txtProgressBar?  Is there any way to
> figure out which functions are only available on certain
> platforms, without installing R on that platform and checking?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Hadley
>
> --
> http://had.co.nz/
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>