'Rscript -e' and stdout() puzzle

-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org 
[mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Benjamin Tyner
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2011 5:31 PM
To: r-help at r-project.org
Subject: [R] 'Rscript -e' and stdout() puzzle

Hello,

I am curious to know why the output of

    Rscript -e "cat(R.version.string,stdout())"

includes a trailing " 1", whereas

    Rscript -e "cat(R.version.string)"
    

Use file=stdout().  Otherwise it prints the value of
as.character(stdout()), which is 1.

Bill Dunlap
Spotfire, TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com  

  

does not. I have tried various mechanisms to subvert this 
behavior, such as

    Rscript -e "invisible(con<-stdout()); cat(R.version.string, con);
    rm(con); q()"

but the trailing " 1" remains.

Thanks,
Ben