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Environmental variables

4 messages · David Epstein, Andrew, Charles C. Berry +1 more

David Epstein
# 
I use a Mac (10.4.11 Mac Os X).

In my .tcshrc I define an environmental variable MY.
Is it possible to find out its value from inside R? When one loads
R for Mac OS X Cocoa GUI written by:
	Simon Urbanek
	Stefano M. Iacus
are files like .tcshrc read by R?

Can I make the value of this environmental variable available to R?

Sys.getenv() produces a lot of output, with the values of many environmental
variables, but not this one.

Do I need a file with the correct value of MY, and have both R and my Unix
shell read the same file, or is there a better way to proceed? I want to
avoid duplicating the information in source files, as this can lead to a
setup that is very hard to maintain.

Thanks for any help.
David
Andrew
# 
can you use the system function?

system("echo $PATH")
On Feb 2, 11:10?am, David Epstein <David.Epst... at warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
Charles C. Berry
#
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, David Epstein wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
Did you try starting the R GUI from the command line whilst using tcsh?

<username>% /Applications/R.app/Contents/MacOS/R &

The R GUI when started by launch'ing it picks up different environment 
vars than when starting it from a shell.

And Sys.getenv() would show them.

HTH,

Chuck

p.s. R-sig-mac is a better place for this question.

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        
Charles C. Berry                            (858) 534-2098
                                             Dept of Family/Preventive Medicine
E mailto:cberry at tajo.ucsd.edu	            UC San Diego
http://famprevmed.ucsd.edu/faculty/cberry/  La Jolla, San Diego 92093-0901

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Gad Abraham
    

    

      
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David Epstein wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
R launched from the dock will not inherit variables from .bashrc or 
.tcshrc because it's not a child process of the shell.

You have to set the variables in an XML file called environment.plist, 
inside a directory .MacOSX in your home directory (create it if it 
doesn't exist), e.g.:

macbook:~ gad$ cat .MacOSX/environment.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" 
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>PATH</key>
 
<string>/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/sw/bin:/usr/local/bin:/sw/sbin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin</string>
	<key>JAVA_HOME</key>
	<string>/Library/Java/Home</string>
</dict>
</plist>