R help - May 1997 - R-beta: auto save

I'm just about to put an autosave feature into R as per
requests by Peter and Kurt.
My current thinking is that it should be an option so that it
is setable (in the profile if you want). One simply specifies the
number of commands that are executed between calls to save.
It won't be incremental; I'll just dump the output of ls().
I think that the file name should not be .RData but rather something
like .RAutoSave (so it's there if you need it but you don't get it
on startup unless you ask for it).
Comments????


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-r-help
mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at
stat.math.ethz.ch
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

>>>>> "Rob" == Robert Gentleman <rgentlem at
stat.auckland.ac.nz> writes:
    Rob> I'm just about to put an autosave feature into R as per
requests...

good!

    Rob> My current thinking is that it should be an option
    Rob> so that it is setable (in the profile if you want).

sounds very good.

    Rob> One simply specifies the number of commands that are executed
    Rob> between calls to save.

Let's call this number  ASI ( = Auto_Save_Interval)
The question is  how the default value for ASI is to be determined.

I think that ASI = Inf  for  'BATCH' mode  and when using source(.),
but  ASI < Inf  even if the user does not have a ~/.Rprofile.

    Rob> It won't be incremental; I'll just dump the output
    Rob> of ls().  I think that the file name should not be .RData but
    Rob> rather something like .RAutoSave (so it's there if you need it
but
    Rob> you don't get it on startup unless you ask for it).

The following is a different proposal,
maybe more intuitive for "novices" :

A regular   q(ask)   probably should remove  .RAutoSave:
			[ if ask='yes', we have a new .RData anyway,
			  and otherwise, we wanted to rm(.) things ]
Then, upon startup, when there's an  .RAutoSave newer than .RData,
it must have been from a "crash" (non-regular termination of R),
and the user would be asked if (s)he wanted to use  .RAutoSave instead of
.RData. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-r-help
mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html
Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe"
(in the "body", not the subject !)  To: r-help-request at
stat.math.ethz.ch
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=