R command line: need intelligent command history recall?
I guess you are using Windows, as you do not tell us. History search facilities are available in Rterm.exe, and also in readline as used in the interface on Unix-alikes. Many people use Emacs+ESS. (In all cases I think the search mode is slicker than you describe for Matlab.) And RGui has another mechanism (read on) that is more suited to a GUI. If you would like a history search in RGui.exe, please contribute the code to do so. R is a volunteer project, and this was deliberately not implemented as no Windows user expressed an interest. I think you will find `the productivity' is in using a higher-level language than C. R does have a line-by-line debugger (called debug, so not hard to find). If you want to set breakpoints etc, see package `debug' on CRAN. And the `Writing R Extensions' manual in the R-devel version of R (to become 2.3.0) has a chapter on `Debugging'. I teach 50 or so people to use R/S a year. They end up with different patterns of working. Some use script windows all the time, some use Emacs+ESS, some use a Linux command line/Rterm.exe. I believe it is a mistake to think that `one size fits all'.
On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, 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))",
Try history(). This pops up a window from which you can submit one or more command lines (or parts of lines).
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?
Yes.
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.
That is a matter of opinion. If you want us to accept your opinion, you need to give your credentials, and you haven't even told us your name and affiliation.
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! [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595