Expert R users, what's in your .Rprofile? [closed]

Answer 1

I have an environment variable R_USER_WORKSPACE which points to the top directory of my packages. In .Rprofile I define a function devlib which sets the working directory (so that data() works) and sources all .R files in the R subdirectory. It is quite similar to Hadley's l() function above.

devlib <- function(pkg) {
  setwd(file.path(Sys.getenv("R_USER_WORKSPACE", "."), deparse(substitute(pkg)), "dev"))
  sapply(list.files("R", pattern=".r$", ignore.case=TRUE, full.names=TRUE), source)
  invisible(NULL)
}

.First <- function() {
  setwd(Sys.getenv("R_USER_WORKSPACE", "."))
  options("repos" = c(CRAN = "http://mirrors.softliste.de/cran/", CRANextra="http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/RWin"))
}

.Last <- function() update.packages(ask="graphics")

Answer 2

I like saving my R command history and having it available each time I run R:

In the shell or .bashrc:

export R_HISTFILE=~/.Rhistory

in .Rprofile:

.Last <- function() {
        if (!any(commandArgs()=='--no-readline') && interactive()){
                require(utils)
                try(savehistory(Sys.getenv("R_HISTFILE")))
        }
}

Answer 3

Here's from my ~/.Rprofile, designed for Mac and Linux.

These make errors easier to see.

options(showWarnCalls=T, showErrorCalls=T)

I hate the CRAN menu choice, so set to a good one.

options(repos=c("http://cran.cnr.Berkeley.edu","http://cran.stat.ucla.edu"))

More history!

Sys.setenv(R_HISTSIZE='100000')

The following is for running on Mac OSX from the terminal (which I greatly prefer to R.app because it's more stable, and you can organize your work by directory; also make sure to get a good ~/.inputrc). By default, you get an X11 display, which doesn't look as nice; this instead gives a quartz display same as the GUI. The if statement is supposed to catch the case when you're running R from the terminal on Mac.

f = pipe("uname")
if (.Platform$GUI == "X11" && readLines(f)=="Darwin") {
  # http://www.rforge.net/CarbonEL/
  library("grDevices")
  library("CarbonEL")
  options(device='quartz')
  Sys.unsetenv("DISPLAY")
}
close(f); rm(f)

And preload a few libraries,

library(plyr)
library(stringr)
library(RColorBrewer)
if (file.exists("~/util.r")) {
  source("~/util.r")
}

where util.r is a random bag of stuff I use, under flux.

Also, since other people were mentioning console width, here's how I do it.

if ( (numcol <-Sys.getenv("COLUMNS")) != "") {
  numcol = as.integer(numcol)
  options(width= numcol - 1)
} else if (system("stty -a &>/dev/null") == 0) {
  # mac specific?  probably bad in the R GUI too.
  numcol = as.integer(sub(".* ([0-9]+) column.*", "\\1", system("stty -a", intern=T)[1]))
  if (numcol > 0)
    options(width=  numcol - 1 )
}
rm(numcol)

This actually isn't in .Rprofile because you have to re-run it every time you resize the terminal window. I have it in util.r then I just source it as necessary.

Answer 4

I use the following to get cacheSweave (or pgfSweave) to work with the "Compile PDF" button in RStudio:

library(cacheSweave)
assignInNamespace("RweaveLatex", cacheSweave::cacheSweaveDriver, "utils")

Answer 5

Here are two functions I find handy for working with windows.

The first converts the \s to /.

.repath <- function() {
   cat('Paste windows file path and hit RETURN twice')
   x <- scan(what = "")
   xa <- gsub('\\\\', '/', x)
   writeClipboard(paste(xa, collapse=" "))
   cat('Here\'s your de-windowsified path. (It\'s also on the clipboard.)\n', xa, '\n')
 }

The second opens the working directory in a new explorer window.

getw <- function() {
    suppressWarnings(shell(paste("explorer",  gsub('/', '\\\\', getwd()))))
}

Answer 6

Here are mine:

.First <- function () {
  options(device="quartz")
}

.Last <- function () {
  if (!any(commandArgs() == '--no-readline') && interactive()) {
    require(utils)
    try(savehistory(Sys.getenv("R_HISTFILE")))
  }
}

# Slightly more flexible than as.Date
# my.as.Date("2009-01-01") == my.as.Date(2009, 1, 1) == as.Date("2009-01-01")
my.as.Date <- function (a, b=NULL, c=NULL, ...) {
  if (class(a) != "character")
    return (as.Date(sprintf("%d-%02d-%02d", a, b, c)))
  else
    return (as.Date(a))
}

# Some useful aliases
cd <- setwd
pwd <- getwd
lss <- dir
asd <- my.as.Date # examples: asd("2009-01-01") == asd(2009, 1, 1) == as.Date("2009-01-01")
last <- function (x, n=1, ...) tail(x, n=n, ...)

# Set proxy for all web requests
Sys.setenv(http_proxy="http://192.168.0.200:80/")

# Search RPATH for file <fn>.  If found, return full path to it
search.path <- function(fn,
     paths = strsplit(chartr("\\", "/", Sys.getenv("RPATH")), split =
                switch(.Platform$OS.type, windows = ";", ":"))[[1]]) {
  for(d in paths)
     if (file.exists(f <- file.path(d, fn)))
        return(f)
  return(NULL)
}

# If loading in an environment that doesn't respect my RPATH environment
# variable, set it here
if (Sys.getenv("RPATH") == "") {
  Sys.setenv(RPATH=file.path(path.expand("~"), "Library", "R", "source"))
}

# Load commonly used functions
if (interactive())
  source(search.path("afazio.r"))

# If no R_HISTFILE environment variable, set default
if (Sys.getenv("R_HISTFILE") == "") {
  Sys.setenv(R_HISTFILE=file.path("~", ".Rhistory"))
}

# Override q() to not save by default.
# Same as saying q("no")
q <- function (save="no", ...) {
  quit(save=save, ...)
}

# ---------- My Environments ----------
#
# Rather than starting R from within different directories, I prefer to
# switch my "environment" easily with these functions.  An "environment" is
# simply a directory that contains analysis of a particular topic.
# Example usage:
# > load.env("markets")  # Load US equity markets analysis environment
# > # ... edit some .r files in my environment
# > reload()             # Re-source .r/.R files in my environment
#
# On next startup of R, I will automatically be placed into the last
# environment I entered

# My current environment
.curr.env = NULL

# File contains name of the last environment I entered
.last.env.file = file.path(path.expand("~"), ".Rlastenv")

# Parent directory where all of my "environment"s are contained
.parent.env.dir = file.path(path.expand("~"), "Analysis")

# Create parent directory if it doesn't already exist
if (!file.exists(.parent.env.dir))
  dir.create(.parent.env.dir)

load.env <- function (string, save=TRUE) {
  # Load all .r/.R files in <.parent.env.dir>/<string>/
  cd(file.path(.parent.env.dir, string))
  for (file in lss()) {
    if (substr(file, nchar(file)-1, nchar(file)+1) %in% c(".r", ".R"))
      source(file)
  }
  .curr.env <<- string
  # Save current environment name to file
  if (save == TRUE) writeLines(.curr.env, .last.env.file)
  # Let user know environment switch was successful
  print (paste(" -- in ", string, " environment -- "))
}

# "reload" current environment.
reload <- resource <- function () {
  if (!is.null(.curr.env))
    load.env(.curr.env, save=FALSE)
  else
    print (" -- not in environment -- ")
}

# On startup, go straight to the environment I was last working in
if (interactive() && file.exists(.last.env.file)) {
  load.env(readLines(.last.env.file))
}