R command line: need intelligent command history recall?
On 2/4/2006 3:03 AM, 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?
Writing such a thing is a little tricky, but should be possible if someone devotes enough time to it. A couple of issues are: - R source code currently maintains no connection to the file it came from. That would need to be added for a source level debugger. - Not all R functions come from source code in a file; they may have been entered at the console, produced as the result returned by another function, etc. - Such IDEs tend to be very platform-specific. You can do a lot of work to make a nice IDE on Windows, and not be able to re-use much of it in other platforms. Currently I don't know of anyone actively working on such a thing. I agree with you that source-level IDEs are great for productivity, and I'd probably switch to one if someone else wrote it. However, I am unlikely to ever have time to do the work myself. Duncan Murdoch
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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