R devel - Nov 2008 - problem with postscript/pdf plots, locales and embedded R

Dear list,

A problem with creating pdf or postscript plots from an embedded R, and
in an environment where a locale is defined, was recently reported on
the rpy (Python->R interface) mailing list.

The problem appears to be that whenever the locale defines ',' as a
separator for the decimal part of a numerical value, the pdf/ps file
generated still has the ',' instead of a '.' causing problem
when open
the resulting file with a postscript/pdf viewer.

Of course, an obvious workaround would be to force the locale for
numbers to C ( LC_NUMERIC = "C" ), but that could be overriding
internationalization features otherwise in R.

Any advice ?


Thanks,


Laurent

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008, laurent wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> A problem with creating pdf or postscript plots from an embedded R, and
> in an environment where a locale is defined, was recently reported on
> the rpy (Python->R interface) mailing list.
>
> The problem appears to be that whenever the locale defines ',' as a
> separator for the decimal part of a numerical value, the pdf/ps file
> generated still has the ',' instead of a '.' causing
problem when open
> the resulting file with a postscript/pdf viewer.
>
> Of course, an obvious workaround would be to force the locale for
> numbers to C ( LC_NUMERIC = "C" ), but that could be overriding
> internationalization features otherwise in R.
>
> Any advice ?
Don't set LC_NUMERIC with R: ?Sys.setlocale did warn you about that.
It used to cause far more problems than this.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595