[R] Genuine relative paths with R

[Olivier GIVAUDAN]

Thank you, Luke.

Unfortunately I don't use Rscript (it is not allowed to run shell scripts on my professional computer).

Best regards,

Olivier
________________________________
De : Tierney, Luke <luke-tierney using uiowa.edu>
Envoy� : mercredi 10 octobre 2018 15:48
� : Olivier GIVAUDAN
Cc : Eik Vettorazzi; r-help using r-project.org
Objet : Re: [R] Genuine relative paths with R

If you are always running your main script as 'Rscript myscript.R'
then your file argument will appear as '--file=myscript.R' in
commandArgs(). So you can use something like

scriptFile <- function()
{
     pat <- "^--file="
     args <- commandArgs()
     file <- args[grepl(pat, args, args)]
     normalizePath(sub(pat, "", file))
}

Then scriptFile() will give you something to work with.

Best,

luke



On Wed, 10 Oct 2018, Olivier GIVAUDAN wrote:

> Dear Eik,
>
> Thank you for your message.
>
> Yes, I already got to know this package and this discussion (while I found the 'here' package). But thanks.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Olivier
> ________________________________
> De : Eik Vettorazzi <E.Vettorazzi using uke.de>
> Envoy??? : lundi 8 octobre 2018 11:30
> ??? : Olivier GIVAUDAN; r-help using r-project.org
> Objet : Re: [R] Genuine relative paths with R
>
> Dear Olivier,
> you may find the rprojroot package useful, see
> https://github.com/r-lib/rprojroot
>
> and a discussion
>
> https://gist.github.com/jennybc/362f52446fe1ebc4c49f#file-2014-10-12_stop-working-directory-insanity-md
>
> Cheers
>
> Am 06.10.2018 um 13:48 schrieb Olivier GIVAUDAN:
>> Dear R users,
>>
>> I would like to work with genuine relative paths in R for obvious reasons: if I move all my scripts related to some project as a whole to another location of my computer or someone else's computer, if want my scripts to continue to run seamlessly.
>>
>> What I mean by "genuine" is that it should not be necessary to hardcode one single absolute path (making the code obviously not "portable" - to another place - anymore).
>>
>> For the time being, I found the following related posts, unfortunately never conclusive or even somewhat off-topic:
>> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1815606/rscript-determine-path-of-the-executing-script
>> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47044068/get-the-path-of-current-script/47045368
>> http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Script-auto-detecting-its-own-path-td2719676.html
>>
>> So I found 2 workarounds, more or less satisfactory:
>>
>>
>>    1.  Either create a variable "ScriptPath" in the first lines of each of my R scripts and run a batch (or shell, etc.) to replace every single occurrence of "ScriptPath <-" by "ScriptPath <- [Absolute path of the R script]" in all the R scripts located in the folder (and possibly subfolders) of the batch file.
>>    2.  Or create an R project file with RStudio and use the package "here" to get the absolute path of the R project file and put all the R scripts related to this project in the R project directory, as often recommended.
>>
>> But I am really wondering why R doesn't have (please tell me if I'm wrong) this basic feature as many other languages have it (batch, shell, C, LaTeX, SAS with macro-variables, etc.)?
>> Do you know whether the language will have this kind of function in a near future? What are the obstacles / what is the reasoning for not having it already?
>>
>> Do you know other workarounds?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Olivier
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
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>>
>
> --
> Eik Vettorazzi
>
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--
Luke Tierney
Ralph E. Wareham Professor of Mathematical Sciences
University of Iowa                  Phone:             319-335-3386
Department of Statistics and        Fax:               319-335-3017
    Actuarial Science
241 Schaeffer Hall                  email:   luke-tierney using uiowa.edu
Iowa City, IA 52242                 WWW:  http://www.stat.uiowa.edu

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