R help - Nov 2005 - short suggestion to the R development team

Dear R developpment team:  would it be easy to introduce a global variable (in
options()) that contains the name of the R file that is currently being
processed?  (ala \jobname in latex.)  if this is difficult, would it be easy to
introduce something like "$0" in perl (i.e., argv[0] in C), which
contains the current R file?  I just checked what perl does interactively, when
no file is being processed.  It fills $0 with "-", though it would
seem to me that just "" would be more appropriate.

sincerely,

/iaw

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I assume you are talking about source() when you say "R file that is
currently being processed".
A few weeks ago I worked on an enhanced version of source.
It allows
* nested source() with relative links,
* looking for files in a pre-defined set of directorys,
* determining the current stack of files/URIs being sourced() in the
nested calls
* recognizing URIs from strings to avoid the need to say
source(url("http://...")

I have this in a package that I have not released, but that I have just
posted at
 http://www.omegahat.org/Prerelease/RSource_0.1-0.tar.gz

It also has a simple implementation of using gpg to manage
encrypted files using an external application.

I have tested the package a little bit and there is some documentation,
but not an excessive amount, shall we say.

And there are some example S files at http://www.omegahat.org/RIO/test
that one can use to test nested source() calls for URIs and examining
the stack of source() calls.

We may put something like this into the R distribution, but
for the moment, it is better to do these things as packages.

 D.

ivo welch wrote:
> Dear R developpment team:  would it be easy to introduce a global variable
(in options()) that contains the name
> of the R file that is currently being processed?  (ala \jobname in latex.) 
> if this is difficult, would it be easy to introduce something like
"$0" in perl (i.e., argv[0] in C),
> which contains the current R file?  I just checked what perl does
interactively, when no file is being processed.
> It fills $0 with "-", though it would seem to me that just
"" would be more appropriate.
> 
> sincerely,
> 
> /iaw
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide!
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
- --
Duncan Temple Lang                duncan at wald.ucdavis.edu
Department of Statistics          work:  (530) 752-4782
371 Kerr Hall                     fax:   (530) 752-7099
One Shields Ave.
University of California at Davis
Davis, CA 95616, USA
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In R 2.2.0 (it might be different in other versions) just put this
in your source file:

this.file <- parent.frame(2)$ofile

(If you place it into a function in your sourced file then will need
to increase the number 2 to take into account of the extra call.)

On 11/9/05, ivo welch <ivo_welch at mailblocks.com>
wrote:
>
> Dear R developpment team:  would it be easy to introduce a global variable
(in options()) that contains the name of the R file that is currently being
processed?  (ala \jobname in latex.)  if this is difficult, would it be easy to
introduce something like "$0" in perl (i.e., argv[0] in C), which
contains the current R file?  I just checked what perl does interactively, when
no file is being processed.  It fills $0 with "-", though it would
seem to me that just "" would be more appropriate.
>
> sincerely,
>
> /iaw
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide!
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>