R help - Apr 2008 - .Rprofile, date tagging history, loading packages

Dear R-Helpers,

I'm fiddling with my .Rprofile in Windows XP & R 2.7.0 Beta. I prefer to
manually save my workspace but automatically save my command history via
the .Rprofile. That is working fine once I found that "utils::" was
required before the loadhistory & savehistory functions. What I would
like to do is add a separator line with a date between the histories of
each session. Something like,

=====History for Sun Apr 13 09:43:50 2008

Is this possible? I have it print the date at startup, but that doesn't
appear as part of the history.

Also, I'm loading two packages at startup, which is working fine with
this code:

local({
   myOriginal <- getOption("defaultPackages")
   myAutoLoads <- c("Hmisc","ggplot2")
   myBoth <- c(myOriginal,myAutoLoads)
   options(defaultPackages = myBoth)
 })

But when reading AITR, I noticed it has a .Rprofile example that looks
much simpler. It just loads the one additional package without checking
the defaultPackages. Is this just as good? Does it even need to be in
the .First function definition, or could it simply be a command by
itself in .Rprofile?

.First <- function() {
options(prompt="$ ", continue="+\t") # $ is the prompt
options(digits=5, length=999) # custom numbers and printout
x11() # for graphics
par(pch = "+") # plotting character
source(file.path(Sys.getenv("HOME"), "R",
"mystuff.R"))
# my personal functions
library(MASS) # attach a package
}

Thanks,
Bob

My whole .Rprofile:

#     Startup Settings

# Place any R commands below.

options(width=64, digits=5, show.signif.stars=TRUE)
set.seed(1234)
setwd("/myRfolder")
myPackages <- c("car","foreign","hexbin",
  "ggplot2","gmodels","gplots", "Hmisc",
  "lattice",
"reshape","ggplot2","Rcmdr")
utils::loadhistory(file = "myCumulative.Rhistory")


# Load packages automatically below.

 local({
   myOriginal <- getOption("defaultPackages")

   # Edit next line to include your favorites.
   myAutoLoads <- c("Hmisc","ggplot2")
   myBoth <- c(myOriginal,myAutoLoads)
   options(defaultPackages = myBoth)
 })

# Things put here are done first.
.First <- function() 
  {
    cat("\n   Welcome to R!")
    cat("\n  " , paste(date()), "\n\n" )
  }


# Things put here are done last.
.Last <- function() 
  {
    graphics.off()
    cat("\n\n  myCumulative.Rhistory has been saved on "
,paste(date())
) 
    cat("\n\n  Goodbye!\n\n") 
    utils::savehistory(file="myCumulative.Rhistory")
  }

========================================================Bob Muenchen (pronounced
Min'-chen), Manager
Statistical Consulting Center
U of TN Office of Information Technology
200 Stokely Management Center, Knoxville, TN 37996-0520
Voice: (865) 974-5230 
FAX: (865) 974-4810
Email: muenchen at utk.edu
Web: http://oit.utk.edu/scc, 
News: http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/statnews.html
=========================================================

Muenchen, Robert A (Bob) wrote:
> Dear R-Helpers,
>
> I'm fiddling with my .Rprofile in Windows XP & R 2.7.0 Beta. I
prefer to
> manually save my workspace but automatically save my command history via
> the .Rprofile. That is working fine once I found that "utils::"
was
> required before the loadhistory & savehistory functions. What I would
> like to do is add a separator line with a date between the histories of
> each session. Something like,
>
> =====History for Sun Apr 13 09:43:50 2008
>
> Is this possible? I have it print the date at startup, but that doesn't
> appear as part of the history.
>   
See ?timestamp.  I think it does what you want.

I don't know the relative merits of the two methods below; I suspect 
they're all pretty much equivalent (but watch out for things like search 
order, and which functions are available at which time.)

Duncan Murdoch
> Also, I'm loading two packages at startup, which is working fine with
> this code:
>
> local({
>    myOriginal <- getOption("defaultPackages")
>    myAutoLoads <- c("Hmisc","ggplot2")
>    myBoth <- c(myOriginal,myAutoLoads)
>    options(defaultPackages = myBoth)
>  })
>
> But when reading AITR, I noticed it has a .Rprofile example that looks
> much simpler. It just loads the one additional package without checking
> the defaultPackages. Is this just as good? Does it even need to be in
> the .First function definition, or could it simply be a command by
> itself in .Rprofile?
>
> .First <- function() {
> options(prompt="$ ", continue="+\t") # $ is the prompt
> options(digits=5, length=999) # custom numbers and printout
> x11() # for graphics
> par(pch = "+") # plotting character
> source(file.path(Sys.getenv("HOME"), "R",
"mystuff.R"))
> # my personal functions
> library(MASS) # attach a package
> }
>
> Thanks,
> Bob
>
> My whole .Rprofile:
>
> #     Startup Settings
>
> # Place any R commands below.
>
> options(width=64, digits=5, show.signif.stars=TRUE)
> set.seed(1234)
> setwd("/myRfolder")
> myPackages <- c("car","foreign","hexbin",
>   "ggplot2","gmodels","gplots",
"Hmisc",
>   "lattice",
"reshape","ggplot2","Rcmdr")
> utils::loadhistory(file = "myCumulative.Rhistory")
>
>
> # Load packages automatically below.
>
>  local({
>    myOriginal <- getOption("defaultPackages")
>
>    # Edit next line to include your favorites.
>    myAutoLoads <- c("Hmisc","ggplot2")
>    myBoth <- c(myOriginal,myAutoLoads)
>    options(defaultPackages = myBoth)
>  })
>
> # Things put here are done first.
> .First <- function() 
>   {
>     cat("\n   Welcome to R!")
>     cat("\n  " , paste(date()), "\n\n" )
>   }
>
>
> # Things put here are done last.
> .Last <- function() 
>   {
>     graphics.off()
>     cat("\n\n  myCumulative.Rhistory has been saved on "
,paste(date())
> ) 
>     cat("\n\n  Goodbye!\n\n") 
>     utils::savehistory(file="myCumulative.Rhistory")
>   }
>
> ========================================================> Bob Muenchen
(pronounced Min'-chen), Manager
> Statistical Consulting Center
> U of TN Office of Information Technology
> 200 Stokely Management Center, Knoxville, TN 37996-0520
> Voice: (865) 974-5230 
> FAX: (865) 974-4810
> Email: muenchen at utk.edu
> Web: http://oit.utk.edu/scc, 
> News: http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/statnews.html
> ========================================================>
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