[TxMt] TM window as R Terminal

[Hans-Joerg Bibiko]

Hi,

I open the first round for discussions ;)

The attached bundle 'R experimental' is REALLY experimentally!!!
So, if you want to try it out, save everything in beforehand!

I tried to write a kind of a daemon which is able to use any TM window  
as R terminal directly (without applescript, paste&copy, restart R,  
etc.).

I was inspired of the ruby testpipe script. I implemented this in  
Perl, and improved it a bit.
I used a named pipe '/tmp/r_in' to communicate with R which runs in  
--slave mode.
Furthermore I have two additional temp files /tmp/r_out and  
/tmp/r_out.r. It was a bit tricky to get the right access rights and  
to avoid to parse much text.

Usage:
-install this bundle
-open a new empty window
-set the scope to 'R'
-run the bundle command 'Start TM's R session' (crtl+shiftR)
(
The terminal opens and executes 'perl $TM_BUNDLE_SUPPORT/bin/runR.pl &'.
Leave this terminal window open! Up to now I didn't find a way to  
invoke such a script from a TM command directly.
)
-type in this new empty window
> 2*3
  and press ctrl+enter

in the window now you should see
> 2*3
[1] 6
>

and so forth

-now you can declare variables as usual
-you can write a function like:
> a <- function(x)
{x^4}

and press ctrl+enter

-ctrl+enter or 'execute last command' will look for the last piece of  
code which begins with '\n> '; everything after that will piped to R  
(meaning also more than one line)

-ctrl+enter will invoke a macro which tries to set the caret to end of  
the window (for inserting) and starts 'execute last command' ; I know  
this solution is terrible but I had no other idea

-'> ?print' or '> ?log2' or '> ?ps' are working (rudimentary but  
faster than the normal Show R Help)

-to quit write as usual '> q()' and press ctrl+enter and close the  
Terminal window

-each piped call to R is written as 'try("2*3")'. By using 'try()' I  
avoid that the pipe will be cancelled after an error.
(e.g.: If I write '> a*2' and "a" is not defined you get the error  
message and the daemon will be cancelled; if you write 'try(a*2)' you  
get the error message and the pipe is still open)

-stdout and sterr are redirected to stdout

This is the first approach.

I tested it, and the basics are working. If you want to draw something  
like '> plot(c(1:3))' you have to call '> quartz()' in beforehand to  
start a graphic device.
But this leads to some weird things, so please be careful. In  
principal it works but it occurs some stack errors. Must be checked!

Keyboard input while running a function e.g. a demo(mathplot) doesn't  
work. Must be checked how to implement this!?

Questions:

1) Does this also work for others?
2) How to invoke a R session from TM directly?
3) How to set up this R session with a init script (for plot etc.)
4) How can I also kill the perl process after typing '> q()'?
5) How to start several TM R sessions?
6) R's readline function?
7) How to set the caret of my current window at the end of it within a  
command?
8) ......


Any comment is welcomed as usual


While testing I can see TM advantages as R GUI ;) but there is much to do.

Have a nice day or night

-Hans




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