set working directory to current source directory

When you close R it asks whether to save the workspace. I often say
"yes" and later start R by double clicking on that workspace (named
.Rdata) -- then the wd is automatically set. Alternatively you can
have setwd("X:/some/thing") at the beginning of your source file.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 3:40 AM, Sachinthaka Abeywardana

Hi all,

Is there a way to get cran R to set the working directory to be wherever
the source file is? Each time I work on a project on different computers I
keep having to set the working directory which is getting quite annoying.

Thanks,
Sachin

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On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Sachinthaka Abeywardana

Hi all,

Is there a way to get cran R to set the working directory to be wherever
the source file is? Each time I work on a project on different computers I
keep having to set the working directory which is getting quite annoying.

Thanks,
Sachin

You could use this:

source.and.set <- function(x) {
	setwd(dirname(x))
	source(x)
}
# use it like this:
source.and.set("/a/b/c.R")

or you could put this hack at the top of your source file in which
case whenever its source'd it will setwd to its directory:

this.dir <- dirname(parent.frame(2)$ofile)
setwd(this.dir)

Statistics & Software Consulting
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com

Hi Sachin,

Is there a way to get cran R to set the working directory to be
wherever the source file is? Each time I work on a project on
different computers I keep having to set the working directory which
is getting quite annoying.

a while ago I asked a somewhat similar question on stackoverflow:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8835426/get-filename-and-path-of-sourced-file

You may want to have a look at the suggestions I got.

Best,

Claudia

Claudia Beleites
Spectroscopy/Imaging
Institute of Photonic Technology 
Albert-Einstein-Str. 9
07745 Jena
Germany

email: claudia.beleites at ipht-jena.de
phone: +49 3641 206-133
fax:   +49 2641 206-399

Subject: Re: [R] set working directory to current source directory

A windows-centric work-round (assuming .Rdata files are 'associated' with the right R binary n installation) is to save an empty environment  in the relevant project directory with the source file you would normally run. Starting R by clicking on .Rdata file opens R in the right directory to start with. Using relative paths in scripts thereafter then keeps things within the project work area. Starting the first script with rm(list=ls()) guards against inadvertent inclusion of old data (and even apparently 'empty' environments aren't necessarily empty, so I clean up regardless if I start a session that way).

S Ellison

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