reluctant to read win95 directory (PR#231)

Prof Brian D Ripley writes:

Why was this a bug report?  It does not seem to me to meet the requirements
of a bug given in the R FAQ.

On 22 Jul 1999, Peter Dalgaard BSA wrote:

John.Peters@tip.csiro.au writes:

Using rw0642 under win95, on executing from a directory on the c: drive:

   system("command.com /c dir", intern=T)

there is a whirring from drive a: (empty), then the message appears in a 
dos box:

   General failure reading device aLP!!?
   Abort, Retry, Fail?

Not that I know anything about Windows, but is there a chance that the
machine goes looking for command.com on the diskette? I.e. you want
c:\\windows\\command.com instead.

Not on my machine: that command works for me.

What do you (John) expect this command to do? In particular, what directory
does you expect it to list?  You have not told it, and Windows has quite
complicated rules for finding the current working directory. My guess
is that those rules are giving a: in your circumstances. Put a floppy
in and find out.

Tip:  using shell() would be much simpler. Try ?shell (on Windows only).

Firstly a workaround (fix?):

Disable McAfee VirusScan 4.0.2/4.0.4032.  If this means it could 
be described as more an incompatibility than a bug I apologise. 


Secondly to respond to the comments and suggestions (McAfee enabled):

What do I expect this command to do:
To read the names of the files in the current directory for assignment 
to a vector.  By current directory I mean the one named in the win95 
shortcut "Start in:" box, which is also the one initially offered by the 
Rgui pull down "File - Change dir".  It succeeds in this, but not on the 
first attempt.

Put a floppy in drive a:
Less whirring, but same result.  Hitting "a" gives the behaviour I 
described.  Hitting "f" succeeds after a few tries, but next time again 
needs a few tries before succeeding.  So far it seems exactly four "f"s 
or three "a"s are required.

Try shell():
Both the following cause the same behaviour as with "system()":
  shell("dir c:\\tmp\\9907","c:\\windows\\command.com",intern=T)
  shell("dir","command.com",intern=T)

Many thanks

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Peters
CSIRO National Measurement Laboratory
PO Box 218                                Phone:    +61 2 9413 7503
Lindfield NSW 2070                        Fax:      +61 2 9413 7202
Australia                                 Internet: John.Peters@tip.CSIRO.AU
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