R command line: need intelligent command history recall?
Michael wrote:
Hi all, I am not sure if this feature exists in the R-console command line prompt: In Matlab, if I want to enter a command which is similar to what I have entered before, I can enter a few prefix, then press "->", the previous command that matches with this prefix will then appear on this command line, and it saves a lot of our time. For example:
abline(lm(new~old)) cor(new, old)
... ... ... many lines entered ... ... now I want to reuse "abline(lm(new~old))", R-console provides "->" functionality to recall old commands, but it trace back one by one, it is slow if "abline" is way back, say 50 lines above my current command line... it is too slow. In Matlab, I just need to enter "ab", then press "->", if there is no other "ab******" between the "abline" and my current command line, then the console will intelligently recall "abline" back to me... Very convinient. Does this feature exist in R? Any other good Integrated Developement Environment for R? Perhaps R users are mathematicians and statisticians; but as a software engineer myself, I found a Visual C++-like integrated developement environment is really efficient and time-saving. It and Borland C++ Builder basically sets standard for modern UI design for programming IDEs. To be a good IDE, it really needs to have an embedded inline debugger. I've asked a statistician, he said he never debugged using a break-point, line-by-line execution debugger -- I cannot imagine this. Where is the productivity? I've used Tinn-R. Frankly it is quite creative. It solved the line-by-line execution problem by copying the line and pasted it to R-console automatically. But a lot of times clipboard generates error. And often times the copy and paste within Tinn editor itself are problemetic. For example, I have been never able to select a portion of a line. When I paste a paragraph, it always erases the current line and the following lines, instead of inserting, ... and if I want to select one line, it always select two lines for me... etc. Anyway, I hope there is IDEs that are better than Tinn-R. Thanks a lot!
Please, submit a bug report to Tinn-R authors, if you want to see it improved. Best, Philippe Grosjean