[ESS] toggle between R versions

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "MWK" == Mark W Kimpel <mwkimpel at gmail.com>
>>>>>     on Wed, 06 Feb 2008 11:16:18 -0500 writes:

    MWK> I"m trying to do it Martin's way because I like to keep my 
    MWK> site-libraries separate from the R folders for ease of upgrade purposes. 
    MWK> I know have both R-2.6.1 and R-devel on my PATH. From the shell, typing 
    MWK> "R" gets me 2.6.1 because its first on my PATH; but from ESS now I can't 
    MWK> get either R to start.

    MWK> How can I customize emacs exec-path? From what I have read, it is 
    MWK> initialized from the PATH variable.

Exactly.  That's why I tried to say that they are typically equivalent
(but not in the case where your own emacs-initialization code
 modifies exec-path).

Martin

    MWK> Mark

    MWK> Mark W. Kimpel MD  ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry
    MWK> Indiana University School of Medicine

    MWK> 15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN  46074

    MWK> (317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail
    MWK> (317) 204-4202 Home (no voice mail please)

    MWK> mwkimpel<at>gmail<dot>com

    MWK> ******************************************************************


    MWK> Martin Maechler wrote:
    >>>>>>> "RMH" == Richard M Heiberger <rmh at temple.edu>
    >>>>>>> on Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:57:18 -0500 writes:
    >> 
    RMH> That is supposed to work on Linux with no further
    RMH> intervention from the user.  Please reply to the list
    RMH> with which versions of OS, emacs, ESS you are using.
    RMH> Are you doing anything strange in your site-start.el or
    RMH> .emacs file?  Where are the R files living?  Are they
    RMH> in the default place for Linux distributions?  I am
    RMH> very puzzled that Other/ doesn't contain at least three
    RMH> items: R-newest, R-2.6.1, R-devel.  They are usually
    RMH> placed on that menu automatically when ess-site is
    RMH> started.
    >> 
    RMH> Try manually entering
    RMH> M-x R-devel
    RMH> and let the list know if that was able to start the alternate version.
    >> 
    >> For all this to work, these versions of R must be in Mark's
    >> PATH when emacs is started, or, actually rather in
    >> Emacs'  exec-path variable at the time the ESS lisp code is
    >> loaded.
    >> 
    >> 
    >> 
    >> 
    RMH> -----Original Message-----
    RMH> From: Mark W Kimpel [mailto:mwkimpel at gmail.com] 
    RMH> Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 11:40 PM
    RMH> To: Richard M. Heiberger
    RMH> Cc: ess-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
    RMH> Subject: Re: [ESS] toggle between R versions
    >> 
    RMH> Richard,
    >> 
    RMH> This was the first thing I tried, but the only thing listed under 
    RMH> "other" is "R-newest", which when I tried it, loaded R-2.6.1 just as "R" 
    RMH> does. I am not using Windows, which may keep track of versions in the 
    RMH> registry, but Linux, where I have to put a symbolic link to R in /usr/bin
    >> 
    RMH> mark
    >> 
    RMH> Mark W. Kimpel MD  ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry
    RMH> Indiana University School of Medicine
    >> 
    RMH> 15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN  46074
    >> 
    RMH> (317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail
    RMH> (317) 204-4202 Home (no voice mail please)
    >> 
    RMH> mwkimpel<at>gmail<dot>com
    >> 
    RMH> ******************************************************************
    >> 
    >> 
    RMH> Richard M. Heiberger wrote:
    >> >> When you are in a myfile.r buffer, click on the emacs menu item
    >> >> ESS/Start Process/Other/
    >> >> This will give you a list of all versions of R on your computer.
    >> >> Click one of them and it will execute inside an *R* buffer.
    >> >> 
    >> >> -----Original Message-----
    >> >> Behalf Of Mark W Kimpel
    >> >> Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 11:11 PM
    >> >> Subject: [ESS] toggle between R versions
    >> >> 
    >> >> I have both R-2.6.1 and R-devel installed on Ubuntu Gutsy, each with 
    >> >> their own site-library, although currently I go into .Rprofile to 
    >> >> manually change with site-library will be loaded. When starting R from 
    >> >> within ESS-Emacs, I would like to be able to instruct which version I 
    >> >> want to use. Is this possible?
    >> 
    >> yes. That's what Rich has been trying to help you with above
    >> 
    >> >> For this to work, I would also need 
    >> >> .Rprofile to detect the version of R and use the appropriate site-library.
    >> 
    >> that's the R part - maybe even more easy for you.. :
    >> I do similar things.
    >> If all the R versions you use are good enough to have getRversion(),
    >> then use that.
    >> The help  ?getRversion  contains this as part of its
    >> examples :
    >> 
    >> if(getRversion() <= "2.5.0") { ## work around missing feature
    >> cat("Your version of R, ", as.character(getRversion()),
    >> ", is outdated.\n",
    >> "Now trying to work around that ...\n", sep = "")
    >> }
    >> 
    >> otherwise {for *old* versions of R}, you need 
    >> RVersion <- paste(R.version$major, R.version$minor, sep=".")
    >> 
    >> *and* then must be more careful with the if(.) but
    >> if(RVersion == "2.6.1") 
    >> will also work and most  '<=' or '>=' will work correctly as well
    >> 
    >> >> 
    >> >> Can all or any of this be done?
    >> 
    >> yes indeed
    >>