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R.app cannot see tar but R (console) can

4 messages · Ross.Darnell at csiro.au, Berend Hasselman, Brian Ripley +1 more

Ross.Darnell at csiro.au
# 
If I run
within the console version of R I get
tar: Must specify one of -c, -r, -t, -u, -x

If I try using R.app  I get

R version 2.13.1 (2011-07-08)
Copyright (C) 2011 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
ISBN 3-900051-07-0
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin9.8.0/x86_64 (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

  Natural language support but running in an English locale

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.

Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.

[R.app GUI 1.41 (5874) x86_64-apple-darwin9.8.0]

[Workspace restored from /Users/dar143/.RData]
[History restored from /Users/dar143/.Rapp.history]
Error in system(tar) : non-empty character argument expected

Same problem running R within Emacs/ESS
So the  path for tar is not known to R.app.  What is the best way to fix this?

Regards
Ross Darnell
Berend Hasselman
#
On 01-08-2011, at 06:15, <Ross.Darnell at csiro.au> <Ross.Darnell at csiro.au> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
1. You should have done system("tar"). Now R is looking for an object tar which is empty.

2. GUI applications in Mac OS X don't inherit/receive  the environment used in Terminal.

You can check this in R.app with Sys.getenv("PATH").
You could use Sys.setenv(PATH="...") in R.app to set PATH for that session.

If you want GUI applications to always receive certain environment variables then  see

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/135688/setting-environment-variables-in-os-x
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa1067/_index.html
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/Articles/EnvironmentVars.html

If you would like to set environment variables for GUI applications in a "nice" way (would also work for Emacs I think) you can use RCenvironment which provides a preference pane for setting environment variables for GUI applications. See

http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCEnvironment/

best

Berend

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Brian Ripley
    

    

      
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And R itself (on any Unix-alike) sets the standard environment 
variable TAR, so why not simply use it, e.g.

system2(Sys.getenv("TAR"), <character vector of args>))

Or use utils::untar etc.

        
On Mon, 1 Aug 2011, Berend Hasselman wrote:

        

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Simon Urbanek
    

    

      
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On Aug 1, 2011, at 1:41 AM, Berend Hasselman <bhh at xs4all.nl> wrote:

        

            

      
      
      
    

        
I would prefer references to canonical sources (R for Mac FAQ 12.19)