R help - Jul 2013 - Empty pdf

Dear all,

I am comparing "R CMD BATCH script.R" with running the following code 
snippet within R:

pdf("Rplots.pdf")
source("script.R")
dev.off()
q(save="no")

Among other things, one difference is that the former produces no 
Rplots.pdf while the latter produces an empty Rplots.pdf, if script.R 
does not contain "plotting" commands (R version 3.0.1,
i486-pc-linux-gnu
(32-bit)). What is the difference between the two with respect to pdf 
plotting?

Best regards
Adrian

-- 
Dr. Adrian Trapletti
Steinstrasse 9b
CH-8610 Uster
Switzerland

Phone : +41 (0) 44 9945630
Mobile : +41 (0) 79 1037131

Email : adrian at trapletti.org
WWW : www.trapletti.org

On Jul 1, 2013, at 14:35 , Adrian Trapletti wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I am comparing "R CMD BATCH script.R" with running the following
code snippet within R:
> 
> pdf("Rplots.pdf")
> source("script.R")
> dev.off()
> q(save="no")
> 
> Among other things, one difference is that the former produces no
Rplots.pdf while the latter produces an empty Rplots.pdf, if script.R does not
contain "plotting" commands (R version 3.0.1, i486-pc-linux-gnu
(32-bit)). What is the difference between the two with respect to pdf plotting?

Same as on the command line: If you type quartz() (or whatever is the default
device for you), you get an empty window if no plotting follows. If you type
plot(0:9), the quartz() device is opened for you and plotted into.

You could try

options(device=pdf)
source("script.R")
q(save="no") 

-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com