[BlindRUG] R Questions

Sun Mar 7 06:03:25 UTC 2021

Hello Henrik,

Thank you very much for your answer. I would be very interested to
know what you have adjusted in the Rprofile file.

In my file it's just a few settings. For example, I replaced the
non-accessible pager with notepad. I would be very happy about further
recommendations!

Kind regards

Niels

2021-03-07 3:04 GMT+01:00, Henrik Bengtsson via BlindRUG <blindrug at nfbnet.org>:
> Regarding:
>
>> 1. On windows, the default global R profile is part of the installation.
>> Each time I update R, the profile is in the wrong place and needs moving.
>> I did do that occasionally but that was years ago now.
>
> So, you must have ended up editing the "site-wide" Rprofile one, that
> comes with the R Windows installation, e.g.
> C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-40~1.4/etc/Rprofile.site.  A good rule of thumb is to
> never edit or add anything to the folder where R itself is installed.
> I never had to do that during the two decades I've use R.
>
> A better option is to use a folder-specific or a user-specific
> .Rprofile file.  Those ones will survive R upgrades since they live
> under you home folder.  When R starts, it looks for a .Rprofile file
> in the following order: If .Rprofile exists in the current folder
> where R is started, then that is sourced during the R startup process.
> If that doesn't exist, then it looks for .Rprofile in your home
> folder.   The latter is by far most commonly used one by people. BTW,
> the format of this file must be a valid R script with a trailing
> newline.  If you forget the newline at the end, R will silently ignore
> the file (which is such an annoying misfeature).
>
> One MS Windows, it is a bit confusing what R considers to be your home
> folder.  It is not C:\Users\alice\ as one would expect.  Instead, it
> is C:\Users\alice\Documents\.  That is vhere you want to put your
> .Rprofile file in order for R to source it every time you start R
> regardless from where you start R and regardless which version of R
> you start.  The easiest way to find the exact location is to do the
> following from within R:
>
>> normalizePath("~/.Rprofile")
> [1] "C:\\Users\\alice\\Documents\\.Rprofile"
>
> That is the file you want to create.  I have such a file on my machine
> and I had it there for many years.  I use it for different things,
> e.g. tweaking the prompt, tweaking R option warnPartialMatchArgs=TRUE
> to remind me to not use partial argument names, and so on.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Henrik
>
> On Sat, Mar 6, 2021 at 3:03 PM Godfrey, Jonathan via BlindRUG
> <blindrug at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Niels,
>>
>> I seldom adjust the R profile nowadays. I have several reasons.
>>
>> 1. On windows, the default global R profile is part of the installation.
>> Each time I update R, the profile is in the wrong place and needs moving.
>> I did do that occasionally but that was years ago now.
>> 2. I might edit the copy of the r profile in a specific work folder, but
>> again, the usefulness to me has reduced. The reason relates to your next
>> question.
>>
>> You will not edit an R script from the R terminal. It is just a plain text
>> file though so you could edit it using any text editor of your choosing.
>> If you do this, you need to pull the script into the R session using
>> `source()`, with the filename in the brackets as a quoted string. I do
>> this very rarely nowadays.
>>
>> The use of R markdown has made the above all quite inefficient. I do
>> practically all work inside an R markdown file because that speeds up the
>> time to production of the final product I want to share. I only use the R
>> prompt (terminal or GUI version) for little jobs or to get at help
>> functionality.
>>
>> My data analysis workflow (today) is to
>>
>> 1. make a text file with the *.Rmd extension. I use WriteR and sometimes
>> just plain old notepad. I might start from a blank file, a template, or
>> sometimes using an old Rmd file that has a lot of what I want in it.
>> 2. If using WriteR, I process to html using the f5 key.
>> 3. if not using WriteR, I use rmarkdown::render() to process the file from
>> the R terminal.
>> 4. to see my results, I open (and keep it open)  the html file step 2 or 3
>> created, and refresh it as I update my Rmd file and re-process it. In most
>> browsers that uses f5.
>>
>>
>> I still use R script files for package development of course. There are
>> some rare occasions when an analysis job involves very long processing
>> times and those tend to be done using an R script too, but that's mostly
>> old habits.
>>
>>
>> HTH
>> Jonathan
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: BlindRUG <blindrug-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Niels Luithardt
>> via BlindRUG
>> Sent: Sunday, 7 March 2021 6:13 AM
>> To: blindrug at nfbnet.org
>> Cc: Niels Luithardt <niels.luithardt at googlemail.com>
>> Subject: [BlindRUG] R Questions
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a few questions about the program R and hope you can help me.
>>
>> 1) Is it useful to customize the Rprofile file?
>>
>> 2) How can I open/run a script in RTerm?
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>> Niels
>>
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>> More information and useful links about using R as a blind person can be
>> obtained at:
>> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz
>>
>> Look for help using R commands by reading the accessible e-book "Let's Use
>> R Now" compiled by Jonathan Godfrey at:
>> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz/lurn/front.html
>>
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>> More information and useful links about using R as a blind person can be
>> obtained at:
>> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz
>>
>> Look for help using R commands by reading the accessible e-book "Let's Use
>> R Now" compiled by Jonathan Godfrey at:
>> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz/lurn/front.html
>
> _______________________________________________
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> The list archive can be viewed at:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindrug_nfbnet.org
> More information and useful links about using R as a blind person can be
> obtained at:
> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz
>
> Look for help using R commands by reading the accessible e-book "Let's Use R
> Now" compiled by Jonathan Godfrey at:
> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz/lurn/front.html
>