[R] RGui: windows-record and command history

Duncan Murdoch
Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:48:52 -0000

On 3/23/2006 7:35 AM, Thomas Steiner wrote:
> a) How can I set the recording of all windows()-history forever to
> "true"? I want something like windows(record = TRUE) but not just
for
> the window that opens then, but for all windows I will open ever.

options(graphics.record=TRUE)

will make that happen for the rest of the session.  To really make it
happen forever, you need to put this line in your Rprofile (see
?Rprofile for where that comes from).

Watch out though:  the graphics history is stored in your current
workspace in memory, and it can get big.  You might find you're running
out of memory if you store everything, and you'll find your .RData files
quite large if you save your workspace.

On my todo list (but not for 2.3.0) is the possibility of setting a
default history length, perhaps defaulting to saving the last 2 or 3
pages.

> b) Scrolling up in RGui (windows 2000) to see past commands is nice,
> but: Is it possible to type eg "wi" and the "arrow up"
and see the
> last command that started with "wi" (like windows()). I know this
> feature from Matlab (Uops, one of the forbidden words here? ;) ) and
> it's nice to have it.

We have things like that on platforms that use the readline library for
input, but Rgui doesn't.  It would be nice, but it's a fair bit of work
to implement properly and it's not on my todo list.

Duncan Murdoch