system('man R') works in Mac unix R but not in GUI R

Using ?R 2.12.2 GUI 1.36 Leopard build 64-bit (5691)

system('man R') gives error: 'No manual entry for R' ... ???

Running R in a unix window the system('man R') function provides the expected manual entry.

This complicates my teaching of R with the Gui if I want to use the system('R ...') function. ? Students need to know unix-window-use as a prereq.

system('man vi') ?however does provide the correct unix vi manual in either unix or GUI.

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Joseph Kunkel <joe at bio.umass.edu> wrote:

Using ?R 2.12.2 GUI 1.36 Leopard build 64-bit (5691)

system('man R') gives error: 'No manual entry for R' ... ???

Running R in a unix window the system('man R') function provides 
the expected manual entry.

This complicates my teaching of R with the Gui if I want to use the 
system('R ...') function. ? Students need to know unix-window-use 
as a prereq.

system('man vi') ?however does provide the correct unix vi manual 
in either unix or GUI.

Well, as you might know, setting PATH and other environment variables
in the terminal using, say .profile or .bashrc, does not make them set
inside of a GUI.  This has been discussed many times on this list (and
really has nothing to do with R at all).

In this case it is because vi ships with the system and the man page
for vi is in
# man -w vi
/usr/share/man/man1/vi.1.gz

I do not have the GUI (CRAN) version of R installed, but I would guess
that the man page is in /usr/local/share ..., and you can check the
directories man searches by
# man -d

On Fri, 25 Mar 2011, Kasper Daniel Hansen wrote:

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Joseph Kunkel <joe at bio.umass.edu> wrote:

Using  R 2.12.2 GUI 1.36 Leopard build 64-bit (5691)

system('man R') gives error: 'No manual entry for R' ...  ??

Running R in a unix window the system('man R') function provides the expected manual entry.

This complicates my teaching of R with the Gui if I want to use the system('R ...') function.   Students need to know unix-window-use as a prereq.

system('man vi')  however does provide the correct unix vi manual in either unix or GUI.

Well, as you might know, setting PATH and other environment variables
in the terminal using, say .profile or .bashrc, does not make them set
inside of a GUI.  This has been discussed many times on this list (and
really has nothing to do with R at all).

Note though that this is slightly different: it is about what is set in the shell which system() launches from R.app, not the usual question of what variables are set for R.app itself.

In this case it is because vi ships with the system and the man page
for vi is in
# man -w vi
/usr/share/man/man1/vi.1.gz

I do not have the GUI (CRAN) version of R installed, but I would guess
that the man page is in /usr/local/share ..., and you can check the
directories man searches by
# man -d

I do, and 'man R' does not find it (and it is not under /usr/local/share/man, which is on my system searched from system() in R.app).  My reading of the CRAN installation scripts is that it is only installed in /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.13/Resources/man1
(Try 'locate R.1': all the other instances are in my own development area.)

So I think the question should rather be why 'man R' works in a 'unix window' (whatever that really is).

And also why you think 'man R' is useful for your students, rather than say 'R --help' (from which it is derived by a Perl script) or the 'Introduction to R' manual.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595