R help - Sep 2010 - [semi-OT] Using fortune() in an email signature

Hello, As you can see from my signature in this message, I use the R
fortune function to generate a fortune, which is then fed to the
signature program, which constructs a named pipe containing the
fortune-bearing sig, which is then included in mail messages. The
problem is that it's got extraneous junk in it and I can't figure out
how to get rid of it. This is the command that generates the fortune:

/usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore -q < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R
(where print-fortune.R is just
library(fortunes)
fortune()
)

This produces this:
> library(fortunes)
> fortune()
Michael Watson: Hopefully this one isn't in the manual or I am about to get
shot :-S
Peter Dalgaard: *Kapow*...
   -- Michael Watson and Peter Dalgaard (question on axis())
      R-help (February 2006)
> 
I would like to remove the first two lines and the last line, so I
changed the command to this:
/usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R  |tail \
-n  +23  | head -n -2 2> /dev/null

That give the desired result when I run it at the command line, but when
I feed it to the signature program, I get this message:

Program /usr/local/bin/r-fortune doesn't seem to exist

This is the signature program code that produces this error:

         /* check for existence of program by forking and then trying to
               exec() it in the child */
            pid = fork();
            switch (pid) {
            case -1:            /* oh well */
                perror("Couldn't fork() a child process");
                exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
            case 0:             /* in child */
                /* close stdout */
                close(1);
                execlp(producer, producer, (char *) 0);
                exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
            default:
                waitpid(pid, &exit_status, 0);
                if (exit_status != EXIT_SUCCESS) {
                    fprintf(stderr, "Program %s doesn't seem to exist
\n",
                            producer);
                    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
                }

Unfortunately, I don't understand this at all. Can anyone give me a clue
as to what's happening?

Thanks.
-- 
Stuart Luppescu -=- slu .at. ccsr.uchicago.edu        
University of Chicago -=- CCSR 
???????? -=-    Kernel 2.6.33-gentoo-r2                
> library(fortunes) > fortune()  Overall, SAS is
 about 11 years behind R and S-Plus in statistical 
 capabilities (last year it was about 10 years
 behind) in my estimation.    -- Frank Harrell (SAS
 User, 1969-1991)       R-help (September 2003)  >

On Sep 1, 2010, at 4:49 PM, Stuart Luppescu wrote:
> Hello, As you can see from my signature in this message, I use the R
> fortune function to generate a fortune, which is then fed to the
> signature program, which constructs a named pipe containing the
> fortune-bearing sig, which is then included in mail messages. The
> problem is that it's got extraneous junk in it and I can't figure
out
> how to get rid of it. This is the command that generates the fortune:
>
> /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore -q < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R
> (where print-fortune.R is just
> library(fortunes)
> fortune()
> )
>
> This produces this:
>> library(fortunes)
>> fortune()
>
> Michael Watson: Hopefully this one isn't in the manual or I am about  
> to get shot :-S
> Peter Dalgaard: *Kapow*...
>   -- Michael Watson and Peter Dalgaard (question on axis())
>      R-help (February 2006)
>
>>
>
> I would like to remove the first two lines and the last line, so I
> changed the command to this:
> /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R  | 
> tail \
> -n  +23  | head -n -2 2> /dev/null
>
> That give the desired result when I run it at the command line, but  
> when
> I feed it to the signature program, I get this message:
>
> Program /usr/local/bin/r-fortune doesn't seem to exist
>
> This is the signature program code that produces this error:
>
>         /* check for existence of program by forking and then trying  
> to
>               exec() it in the child */
>            pid = fork();
>            switch (pid) {
>            case -1:            /* oh well */
>                perror("Couldn't fork() a child process");
>                exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>            case 0:             /* in child */
>                /* close stdout */
>                close(1);
>                execlp(producer, producer, (char *) 0);
>                exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>            default:
>                waitpid(pid, &exit_status, 0);
>                if (exit_status != EXIT_SUCCESS) {
>                    fprintf(stderr, "Program %s doesn't seem to
exist
> \n",
>                            producer);
>                    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>                }
>
> Unfortunately, I don't understand this at all. Can anyone give me a  
> clue
> as to what's happening?
>
> Thanks.
> -- 
> Stuart Luppescu -=- slu .at. ccsr.uchicago.edu
> University of Chicago -=- CCSR
> ???????? -=-    Kernel 2.6.33-gentoo-r2
>> library(fortunes) > fortune()  Overall, SAS is
> about 11 years behind R and S-Plus in statistical
> capabilities (last year it was about 10 years
> behind) in my estimation.    -- Frank Harrell (SAS
> User, 1969-1991)       R-help (September 2003)  >
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT

On 1 September 2010 at 15:49, Stuart Luppescu wrote:
| Hello, As you can see from my signature in this message, I use the R
| fortune function to generate a fortune, which is then fed to the
| signature program, which constructs a named pipe containing the
| fortune-bearing sig, which is then included in mail messages. The
| problem is that it's got extraneous junk in it and I can't figure out
| how to get rid of it. This is the command that generates the fortune:
| 
| /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore -q < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R
| (where print-fortune.R is just
| library(fortunes)
| fortune()
| )
| 
| This produces this:
| > library(fortunes)
| > fortune()
| 
| Michael Watson: Hopefully this one isn't in the manual or I am about to
get shot :-S
| Peter Dalgaard: *Kapow*...
|    -- Michael Watson and Peter Dalgaard (question on axis())
|       R-help (February 2006)
| 
| > 
| 
| I would like to remove the first two lines and the last line, so I
| changed the command to this:
| /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R  |tail \
| -n  +23  | head -n -2 2> /dev/null
| 
| That give the desired result when I run it at the command line, but when
| I feed it to the signature program, I get this message:

There are scripting front-ends to R for these tasks. A few years ago Jeff and
I released 'r' (aka littler), R Core followed up with Rscript a few
months
later.  I still use r more.

In r / littler, all calls to library() are wrapped in suppressMessages()
because I too hate that echo from library loads.  So here is what you could do:


edd at max:~$ r --package=fortunes --eval="print(fortune())"

Ah, so that's why my report of a bug in the RCheapViagra package didn't
get through....
   -- Barry Rowlingson (after Peter Dalgaard announced a new spam filter for
R-bugs)
      R-devel (January 2004)

edd at max:~$ r --package=fortunes --eval="print(fortune())"

I use R. My company benefits from it. My clients benefit from it.
...and I sleep just fine (when I do sleep)... :-)
   -- Marc Schwartz, Medanalytics (about the 'costs' of free software)
      R-help (June 2004)

edd at max:~$ r -lfortunes -e"print(fortune())"    # shorter form

Soon, they'll be speaking R on the subway.
   -- Michael Rennie (giving 'Kudos to the R support team')
      R-help (July 2004)

edd at max:~$ 


Doing the same with Rscript is left as an exercise....

Cheers, Dirk

-- 
Dirk Eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com

Simply using option --slave instead seems to do the trick.

$ /usr/bin/R --slave < test-fortune.R

Similarly to Brian, I'm much more reluctant to help people who don't 
exist --
who knows, maybe you're a computer program who has just passed the 
Turing test
:-)
    -- Martin Maechler (about postings with anonymous e-mail addresses and
       without real names)
       R-help (March 2006)

CR


On 09/01/2010 03:49 PM, Stuart Luppescu wrote:
> Hello, As you can see from my signature in this message, I use the R
> fortune function to generate a fortune, which is then fed to the
> signature program, which constructs a named pipe containing the
> fortune-bearing sig, which is then included in mail messages. The
> problem is that it's got extraneous junk in it and I can't figure
out
> how to get rid of it. This is the command that generates the fortune:
>
> /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore -q<  /home/sl70/print-fortune.R
> (where print-fortune.R is just
> library(fortunes)
> fortune()
> )
>
> This produces this:
>    
>> library(fortunes)
>> fortune()
>>      
> Michael Watson: Hopefully this one isn't in the manual or I am about to
get shot :-S
> Peter Dalgaard: *Kapow*...
>     -- Michael Watson and Peter Dalgaard (question on axis())
>        R-help (February 2006)
>
>    
>>      
> I would like to remove the first two lines and the last line, so I
> changed the command to this:
> /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore<  /home/sl70/print-fortune.R  |tail \
> -n  +23  | head -n -2 2>  /dev/null
>
> That give the desired result when I run it at the command line, but when
> I feed it to the signature program, I get this message:
>
> Program /usr/local/bin/r-fortune doesn't seem to exist
>
> This is the signature program code that produces this error:
>
>           /* check for existence of program by forking and then trying to
>                 exec() it in the child */
>              pid = fork();
>              switch (pid) {
>              case -1:            /* oh well */
>                  perror("Couldn't fork() a child process");
>                  exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>              case 0:             /* in child */
>                  /* close stdout */
>                  close(1);
>                  execlp(producer, producer, (char *) 0);
>                  exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>              default:
>                  waitpid(pid,&exit_status, 0);
>                  if (exit_status != EXIT_SUCCESS) {
>                      fprintf(stderr, "Program %s doesn't seem to
exist
> \n",
>                              producer);
>                      exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>                  }
>
> Unfortunately, I don't understand this at all. Can anyone give me a
clue
> as to what's happening?
>
> Thanks.
>    

-- 
Christian Raschke
Department of Economics
and
ISDS Research Lab (HSRG)
Louisiana State University
Patrick Taylor Hall, Rm 2128
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
crasch2 at lsu.edu

Or using R & GNU tools:

matt at max:~$ R -e "fortunes::fortune()" | gawk '/^[^>]/
{print}'

It's not a question of trying variations, rather of following
instructions.
   -- Brian D. Ripley (about using 'Writing R Extensions')
      R-help (January 2006)

-Matt

On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 16:49 -0400, Stuart Luppescu
wrote:
> Hello, As you can see from my signature in this message, I use the R
> fortune function to generate a fortune, which is then fed to the
> signature program, which constructs a named pipe containing the
> fortune-bearing sig, which is then included in mail messages. The
> problem is that it's got extraneous junk in it and I can't figure
out
> how to get rid of it. This is the command that generates the fortune:
> 
> /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore -q < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R
> (where print-fortune.R is just
> library(fortunes)
> fortune()
> )
> 
> This produces this:
> > library(fortunes)
> > fortune()
> 
> Michael Watson: Hopefully this one isn't in the manual or I am about to
get shot :-S
> Peter Dalgaard: *Kapow*...
>    -- Michael Watson and Peter Dalgaard (question on axis())
>       R-help (February 2006)
> 
> > 
> 
> I would like to remove the first two lines and the last line, so I
> changed the command to this:
> /usr/bin/R --no-save --no-restore < /home/sl70/print-fortune.R  |tail \
> -n  +23  | head -n -2 2> /dev/null
> 
> That give the desired result when I run it at the command line, but when
> I feed it to the signature program, I get this message:
> 
> Program /usr/local/bin/r-fortune doesn't seem to exist
> 
> This is the signature program code that produces this error:
> 
>          /* check for existence of program by forking and then trying to
>                exec() it in the child */
>             pid = fork();
>             switch (pid) {
>             case -1:            /* oh well */
>                 perror("Couldn't fork() a child process");
>                 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>             case 0:             /* in child */
>                 /* close stdout */
>                 close(1);
>                 execlp(producer, producer, (char *) 0);
>                 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>             default:
>                 waitpid(pid, &exit_status, 0);
>                 if (exit_status != EXIT_SUCCESS) {
>                     fprintf(stderr, "Program %s doesn't seem to
exist
> \n",
>                             producer);
>                     exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>                 }
> 
> Unfortunately, I don't understand this at all. Can anyone give me a
clue
> as to what's happening?
> 
> Thanks.
-- 
Matthew S. Shotwell
Graduate Student 
Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology
Medical University of South Carolina

On 01/09/10 22:18, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> [...]
>
> Doing the same with Rscript is left as an exercise....
>    
I like exercises:

Rscript --default-packages="fortunes" -e "print(fortune())"

Allan