R devel - Aug 2018 - "utils::file.edit" does not understand "editor" with additional arguments

I am using Sublime Text as my editor. If I run `subl -n .Rprofile` in bash, a
file would be opened in a new window.

Back in R, if I run this
> file.edit(".Rprofile", editor="'subl -n'")
sh: 'subl -n': command not found
Warning message:
error in running command

However, the interesting bit happens when I run

edit(1:10, editor="'subl -n?")

It does open Sublime Text. It seems that `file.edit` and `edit` are behaving
differently when ?editor? has additional arguments.

Randy

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We do not have the 'at a minimum' information requested by the posting 
guide, and I cannot reproduce anything like this on a Unix-alike.  Both 
file.edit and edit.default call the same underlying C code, and that 
single-quotes the 'editor' argument to allow for spaces in its path/name
so I would not expect this to work.

Two workarounds:

1) Set an alias in your shell (e.g. in .bashrc) for 'subl -n'.  This is 
something widely needed on macOS where many editors are invoked by 'open 
-a', and I also use it for 'emacsclient -n'.

2) Make use of the ability to specify editor as an R function, invoking 
the external program by system2() etc.


On 28/08/2018 20:07, Randy Lai wrote:
> I am using Sublime Text as my editor. If I run `subl -n .Rprofile` in bash,
a file would be opened in a new window.
> 
> Back in R, if I run this
> 
>> file.edit(".Rprofile", editor="'subl -n'")
> sh: 'subl -n': command not found
> Warning message:
> error in running command
> 
> However, the interesting bit happens when I run
> 
> edit(1:10, editor="'subl -n?")
> 
> It does open Sublime Text. It seems that `file.edit` and `edit` are
behaving differently when ?editor? has additional arguments.
> 
> Randy
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford