How do I tell it which directory to use?

Tom,

You can define your working directory by using:

setwd("C:\Documents and Settings\Tom\My Documents\qpaper7\R Project Started 
19 Dec 05")

check that your file is there:
list.files()

and then use:

source("myFile.txt") 

the machine should load "myFile"

You can go to another directory:
setwd("anotherdir")

and repeat the procedure.

Or even better if you define a number of directories in an external file:

dir1 <- c(C:\Documents and Settings\Tom\My Documents\qpaper7\")
dir2 <- c(C:\Documents and Settings\Tom\My Documents\")

and after loading the file at the beginning of the sesion you can use:

setwd("dir1")  etc.

Is it of any help to you?

Cheers,

Augusto


--------------------------------------------
Augusto Sanabria. MSc, PhD.
Mathematical Modeller
Risk Research Group
Geospatial & Earth Monitoring Division
Geoscience Australia (www.ga.gov.au)
Cnr. Jerrabomberra Av. & Hindmarsh Dr.
Symonston ACT 2609
Ph. (02) 6249-9155
 

-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
[mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Thomas L Jones
Sent: Wednesday, 22 February 2006 4:31 PM
To: R-project help
Subject: [R] How do I tell it which directory to use?

From Tom:

In R 2.2.0 under Windows, I want to be able to give it a filename such 
as "myFile.txt" without the quotes. But actually I mean:

C:\Documents and Settings\Tom\My Documents\qpaper7\R Project Started 
19 Dec 05\myFile.txt

If I were to repeat this each time, my computer would get all bored 
and cranky and start to drop bits (only a joke, of course). I think I 
want to set the Home directory or the working directory or some 
directory or other to the above directory. I may or may not want to 
set some environmental variables.

R 2.2.0; working directly from the console and copying and pasting 
code which I want to test into the console. Windows XP Home Edition. 
Administrator privileges are enabled. A curve ball: There are two 
accounts, "Tom" and "Jones;" the data are stored under "Tom," whereas 
the computation is being done under the "Jones" account. I won't bore 
you with the details of why I am doing this.

I was able to call Sys.getenv ("R_USER") and get the home directory.

I am a newbie to R and not familiar with the terminology.

Tom
Thomas L. Jones, Ph.D., Computer Science