[R] Re: attaching something.RData in pos=1

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Sat, 7 Oct 2000, Peter Perkins wrote:

> in response to my own question from yesterday,
> 
> > i'd like to be able to attach() a file at pos=1 and edit its contents
> > directly, then save() and detach() it
> 
> i hoked up some mods to the C and R source code of R 1.1.1 for unix.  it
> obviously doesn't do exactly what i was used to from S, but it comes
> sort of close, in that it keeps track of a "current working file"
> (specified at startup and defaulting to .RData) in various ways and
> allows one to easily switch CWF (while saving the old one
> semi-automatically) without restarting.  this as opposed to loading
> from a file and ending up with those objects merged with the current
> set of objects.  seems to do what i need, anyway.
> 
> is this list the appropriate forum to suggest this sort of thing for a
> future release?

R-devel is more appropriate, I think.  One thing that immediately springs
to mind is that you need to be very careful about having write
permissions, not clobbering existing files etc.  There are also perennial
problems about how this sort of thing cuts across other planned
enhancements, some of which are articulated on the developer site, and
some of which are only in the minds of core developers.

-- 
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 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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