[R] the invisible question

David Winsemius dw|n@em|u@ @end|ng |rom comc@@t@net
Mon Nov 23 02:35:06 CET 2020


On 11/22/20 5:20 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Nov 2020 10:07:42 +1100
> Jim Lemon <drjimlemon using gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>> I have encountered a problem in some emails with invisible characters
>> in code snippets that throw an error when pasted into the terminal
>> window:
>>
>> Error: unexpected input in:
>> "star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,
>> �"
>>
>> This morning, after two hours of intense frustration, I found that I
>> could reproduce this by typing code containing the above line into
>> Kwrite, the text editor I use. When I pasted the code from Kwrite, it
>> worked in the R terminal window. When I pasted it into a gmail message
>> (set to Plain Text), copied that and pasted it into the R terminal
>> window, I got the error. I was helping a young friend with one of
>> those introductory R courses, but I have had this happen with other
>> requests on the R help list. I thought that it was the fault of the
>> fancy formatting in some emails, and could grumpily blame that, but
>> this is worse as I can't seem to edit it out. Anybody else had this
>> problem? I have sent a message to Gmail help.
> (1) Don't use Kwrite (whatever that is) --- use vi[m] like civilised
> ( :-) ) people do. It's even available for Windoze.  Yes, there is
> a steep learning curve, but once you've climbed it you'll never look
> back.  (And for what it's worth, the curve is not as steep as that for
> emacs!!! :-) )
>
> (2) The function tools::showNonASCII might be helpful to you.

Thunderbird on Ubuntu displays it ats:

"star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,

followed by a line feed and then a diamond with a question-mark and a closing double-quote.


library(tools)
showNonASCII("star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,
+ �")
1: star_wars_matrix<-matrix(box_office,nrow=3,byrow=TRUE,
<ef><bf><bd>


-- 

David.

>
> cheers,
>
> Rolf
>



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