[R] followup -- deficiencies in readline capability

[Jay F Shachter]

Why would R lack history capability?

Someone in a private electronic mail message suggested the possibility
that I was running R in a non-writable directory.  This is not the
case, as the following logfile shows (where "$ " is my shell prompt):

$ ls -ld `pwd`
drwxrwxrwx   15 sys      sys          2560 Apr 30 08:10 /tmp
$ R --vanilla

R : Copyright 2002, The R Development Core Team
Version 1.4.1  (2002-01-30)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type `license()' or `licence()' for distribution details.

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type `contributors()' for more information.

Type `demo()' for some demos, `help()' for on-line help, or
`help.start()' for a HTML browser interface to help.
Type `q()' to quit R.

> debug(history)
> debug(savehistory)
> history()
debugging in: history()
debug: {
    file1 <- tempfile("Rrawhist")
    savehistory(file1)
    rawhist <- scan(file1, what = "", quiet = TRUE, sep = "\n")
    unlink(file1)
    nlines <- length(rawhist)
    inds <- max(1, nlines - max.show):nlines
    if (reverse) 
        inds <- rev(inds)
    file2 <- tempfile("hist")
    write(rawhist[inds], file2)
    file.show(file2, title = "R History", delete.file = TRUE)
}

Browse[1]> 
debug: file1 <- tempfile("Rrawhist")

Browse[1]> 
debug: savehistory(file1)

Browse[1]> 
debugging in: savehistory(file1)
debug: invisible(.Internal(savehistory(file)))

Browse[1]> 
Error in savehistory(file) : no history available to save
> q()
$



My R clearly lacks history capability, and I have no idea why.
What can be the cause of this behavior, and how can it be undone?

			Jay F. Shachter
			6424 N Whipple St
			Chicago IL  60645-4111
				(1-773)7613784
				jay at m5.chi.il.us
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