R help - Apr 2014 - Environment variable defined in .bashrc is not recognized by R

Dear all,
in my .bashrc file I have set the environment variable R_HISTFILE like this:

 export R_HISTFILE="$HOME/.Rhistory"

I then use it in my .Rprofile to have R writing all the history in a
single file, rather than on a per directory basis.
However this doesn't work becaus R_HISTFILE is not recognized by R.

If I type: Sys.getenv("R_HISTFILE")
the output is: ""

How can I get R recognizing environment variables?

Best,
Luca

-- 
Luca Cerone

Skype: luca.cerone

Luca Cerone <luca.cerone at gmail.com> writes:
> Dear all,
> in my .bashrc file I have set the environment variable R_HISTFILE like
this:
>
>  export R_HISTFILE="$HOME/.Rhistory"
>
> I then use it in my .Rprofile to have R writing all the history in a
> single file, rather than on a per directory basis.
> However this doesn't work becaus R_HISTFILE is not recognized by R.
Which OS? How do you start R?

There is a difference between login shell (executed when you log in) and
non-log in (I thik interactive shell? don't know the actual
name). .baschrc is only executed after you are logged in and start the
shell. So when you start R from the shell, it should work - you can
check by 
  
  echo $R_HISTFILE

which should show you the value of the variable.

If you are starting R the R gui (on Mac or RStudio) .bashrc is not
sourced. Checo online for the file which will be sourced by the login
shell - different between OS and distros.

Cheers,

Rainer

>
> If I type: Sys.getenv("R_HISTFILE")
> the output is: ""
>
> How can I get R recognizing environment variables?
>
> Best,
> Luca
-- 
Rainer M. Krug
email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
PGP: 0x0F52F982
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