R help - Oct 2010 - Inheritance and automatic function call on script exit

Hi all,

in order to add certain standard functionality to a large set of
scripts that I maintain, I developed a superscript that I manually
include into every script at the beginning. Here an example of a very
simplified super and subscript.

#
# superscript
#

output <- NULL

writeOutput <- function() {
	processTime <- proc.time()
	outputFilename <- paste("C:/myOutput_", processTime[3],
".csv", sep="")
	write.csv(output, file = outputFilename)
}



#
# subscript
#

source("C:/superscript.R")
output <- data.frame(a=c(1,2,3), b=c(4,5,6))
writeOutput()


I would like to

a) avoid the need to include the super script manually. Does R support
some kind of script inheritance?
b) Is it possible to call writeOutput() automatically when a script is exiting?

Best,
Ralf

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 7:59 AM, Ralf B <ralf.bierig at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> in order to add certain standard functionality to a large set of
> scripts that I maintain, I developed a superscript that I manually
> include into every script at the beginning. Here an example of a very
> simplified super and subscript.
This sounds like it may be time to put things in a package.  Then in
your scripts you could just load the package and use functions.  Just
my 2 cents.
>
> #
> # superscript
> #
>
> output <- NULL
>
> writeOutput <- function() {
> ? ? ? ?processTime <- proc.time()
> ? ? ? ?outputFilename <- paste("C:/myOutput_", processTime[3],
".csv", sep="")
> ? ? ? ?write.csv(output, file = outputFilename)
> }
>
>
>
> #
> # subscript
> #
>
> source("C:/superscript.R")
> output <- data.frame(a=c(1,2,3), b=c(4,5,6))
> writeOutput()
>
>
> I would like to
>
> a) avoid the need to include the super script manually. Does R support
> some kind of script inheritance?
> b) Is it possible to call writeOutput() automatically when a script is
exiting?
If you are running these interactively, you could make your own
source() function.  In that function you could define the super and
subscripts, and have it call writeOutput on.exit().  I suspect you
could get something like that to work even in batch mode by having R
load the function by default and some tweaking of your scripts.
>
> Best,
> Ralf
>
> ______________________________________________
> 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.
>
-- 
Joshua Wiley
Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles
http://www.joshuawiley.com/

> If you are running these interactively, you could make your own
> source() function. ?In that function you could define the super and
> subscripts, and have it call writeOutput on.exit(). ?I suspect you
> could get something like that to work even in batch mode by having R
> load the function by default and some tweaking of your scripts.
What if I do not control the subscripts but only the superscript. In
other words, other people keep adding subscripts and the function of
my superscript only ensures certain standard behaviors.

Ralf


>
>>
>> Best,
>> Ralf
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> 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.
>>
>
> --
> Joshua Wiley
> Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology
> University of California, Los Angeles
> http://www.joshuawiley.com/
>

I think base:on.exit() will do the trick. Thank you :)

Ralf

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Ralf B <ralf.bierig at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> If you are running these interactively, you could make your own
>> source() function. ?In that function you could define the super and
>> subscripts, and have it call writeOutput on.exit(). ?I suspect you
>> could get something like that to work even in batch mode by having R
>> load the function by default and some tweaking of your scripts.
>
> What if I do not control the subscripts but only the superscript. In
> other words, other people keep adding subscripts and the function of
> my superscript only ensures certain standard behaviors.
>
> Ralf
>
>
>
>>
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Ralf
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Joshua Wiley
>> Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology
>> University of California, Los Angeles
>> http://www.joshuawiley.com/
>>
>

Here the modified script with what I learned from  Joshua:

#
# superscript
#

output <- NULL

writeOutput <- function() {
	processTime <- proc.time()
	outputFilename <- paste("C:/myOutput_", processTime[3],
".csv", sep="")
	write.csv(output, file = outputFilename)
}
on.exit(writeOutput, add=T)


#
# subscript
#

source("C:/superscript.R")
output <- data.frame(a=c(1,2,3), b=c(4,5,6))

For some reason, the file is not created. So it seems not to do the
call. What do I do wrong?

Ralf