Skip to content

How to *completely* stop a script after stop()?

7 messages · algorimancer, Duncan Murdoch, William Dunlap +1 more

algorimancer
# 
I too am encountering this problem.  When I have a large script, if I select
all in the editor and then ctrl-r to run, if it encounters a stop() function
it simply prints an error message and continues to execute the remainder of
the script, as opposed to terminating execution at that line.  The quit()
function exits R altogether, which I don't want.  Yes, I could manually
select only the portion of script which I want to run, but for lengthy
scripts which I run repeatedly (generally changing only the name of the file
I want analyzed), this can be quite tedious.  It appears that the only
solution is to put most of the code in a separate file and call it using
source(); this has the downside of reducing the clarity of the code -- it's
a sort-of structural spaghetti code approach.

--
View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/How-to-completely-stop-a-script-after-stop-tp3218808p3436704.html
Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Duncan Murdoch
#
On 08/04/2011 11:47 AM, algorimancer wrote:
It sounds as though you are talking about the Windows GUI.  That's 
important, because other GUIs probably have different behaviour.

To run a script up to the first error, do this:

Highlight the part you want to run (or Ctrl-a for everything).
Copy the code using Ctrl-c.
In the console, run source("clipboard") (perhaps with echo=TRUE if you 
want to see it as it goes).  This is a lot of typing the first time you 
do it, but after that, the up arrow can bring back the command.

It would probably make sense for Ctrl-R to do something functionally 
equivalent to Ctrl-C, source("clipboard", echo=TRUE) rather than the 
current behaviour.  Not going to happen in 2.13.x, but maybe in 2.14.x 
in the fall.

Duncan Murdoch
William Dunlap
# 
Put an open brace in the first line of your file
and a close brace in the last line.

I encourage people with scripts long enough that this
is a problem to divide up their work into functions
that a shorter script calls.  (This is akin to UCSD
Pascal on the Osbourne II that refused to deal with
a function that could not fit onto the tiny screen
-- it forced you do divide things up into small
understandable chunks of work.)

Bill Dunlap
Spotfire, TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com
Duncan Murdoch
#
On 08/04/2011 12:40 PM, William Dunlap wrote:
This shares an advantage with the method I suggested:  if there's a 
syntax error somewhere in the script, *nothing* will be executed.  It 
has the disadvantage of not intermixing input and output the way the 
usual cut and paste would do.

Using source("clipboard", echo=TRUE) has a few disadvantages too:

  - lots of typing
  - the automatic colouring of input in red, output in blue is lost
  - run-time error messages are ugly (though syntax errors are presented 
nicely).

It's nearly trivial to fix the first of these (make Ctrl-R do this 
instead); the 2nd one looks harder.

Duncan Murdoch
Jonathan P Daily
# 
Would options(error = recover) be of some help?
--------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Daily
Technician - USGS Leetown Science Center
11649 Leetown Road
Kearneysville WV, 25430
(304) 724-4480
"Is the room still a room when its empty? Does the room,
 the thing itself have purpose? Or do we, what's the word... imbue it."
     - Jubal Early, Firefly

r-help-bounces at r-project.org wrote on 04/08/2011 12:38:37 PM:
select
function
remainder of
quit()
manually
the file
using
it's
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
Duncan Murdoch
#
On 08/04/2011 1:29 PM, Jonathan P Daily wrote:
No, that will probably be very confusing.  The problem is that the 
Windows GUI uses Ctrl-R as a short form of "cut from the editor, paste 
to the console", and it will paste the whole text regardless of whether 
it works or not.  If recover was triggered, it would be sent the 
remainder of the script, which would probably lead to a long sequence of 
errors (recover is looking for an integer).

Duncan Murdoch
algorimancer
# 
Thank you all for the astoundingly quick responses.  I think that the
bounding open/closed braces approach sounds like the easiest solution for
the moment -- though I look forward to seeing this all automated in a future
version of R :)

Incidentally, I have indeed encapsulated much of the code as functions which
I call using source(); the problematic (lengthy) front-end is a decision
tree which tailors a specific analysis to designated files.  This mimics the
switch/case structure which I'm more familiar with in c/c++.  There's a
limit to how much can be neatly moved to a separate file.

Thank you again for your assistance.

--
View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/How-to-completely-stop-a-script-after-stop-tp3218808p3437025.html
Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.