in R, can I stop print(cat(“”)) from returning NULL? and why does cat(“foo”) return foo>

Question

If I enter

print(cat(\"\"))

I get

NULL

I want to use cat() to print out the progress of an R sc

Answer 1

For this, I often use writeLines(), in combination with strwrap(), and paste() to combine say the loop value if I'm printing out info on the current iteration. strwrap() handles wrapping long lines as required, and writeLines() means I don't have to remember to add a "\n" on the end of my cat() calls.

> writeLines(strwrap("a very very very very long long long long long long long long string, that is too wide for the current pager width"))
a very very very very long long long long long long long long string,
that is too wide for the current pager width

Here is an example using it to print out an iteration indicator:

for(i in 1:1000) {
    if(isTRUE(all.equal(i %% 100, 0)))
        writeLines(strwrap(paste("Iteration", i)))
    ## do something
}

Gives:

> for(i in 1:1000) {
+     if(isTRUE(all.equal(i %% 100, 0)))
+         writeLines(strwrap(paste("Iteration", i)))
+     ## do something
+ }
Iteration 100
Iteration 200
Iteration 300
Iteration 400
Iteration 500
Iteration 600
Iteration 700
Iteration 800
Iteration 900
Iteration 1000