Frequently Asked Questions for R for Windows


This FAQ is for the Windows port of R: it describes features specific to
that version. The main R FAQ can be found at
http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html.

There are two versions of R for Windows, but only is under active
development, that described here. It is often called something like rw0640
(although not officially). Thre is also information on the use of R for
Windows in the Venables & Ripley `R Complements' at
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/MASS2.

This version of the FAQ describes some features only in rw0641 that is due
for release by mid-May.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Installation and Usage

     Q1.1. Where can I find the latest version?
     Q1.2. How do I install R for Windows?
     Q1.3. How do I run it?
     Q1.4. I am using Windows NT and I get a GPF when I try to start
     rgui.exe or rterm.exe for the command line.
     Q1.5. How can I manage my work keeping workspaces for different
     projects in different directories?
     Q1.6. How do I print from R?
     Q1.7. Can I use R BATCH?
     Q1.8. Can I use rw06xx with ESS and emacs?

2. Packages

     Q2.1. Can I install packages (libraries) in this version?
     Q2.2. I don't have permission to write to the rw06xx\library directory.
     Is this fatal?
     Q2.3. The packages I installed do not appear in the HTML help system.
     Q2.4. The functions in the packages I installed are not found by the
     HTML help search system.

3. Windows features

     Q3.1. What should I expect to behave differently from the
     Unix/GNU-Linux version of R?
     Q3.2. I hear about some nifty features: please tell me about them!

4. Workspaces

     Q4.1. My workspace gets saved in a strange place: how do I stop this?
     Q4.2. How do I store my workspace in a different place?
     Q4.3. Can I load workspaces saved under Unix/GNU-Linux?

5. The R Console and Fonts

     Q5.1. I would like to be able to use Japanese fonts in the console and
     to annotate graphs.
     Q5.2. I don't see characters with accents at the R console, for example
     in ?text.
     Q5.3. When using Rgui, the output to the console seems to be delayed.

6. Building from Source

     Q6.1. How can I compile R from source?
     Q6.2. How do I debug code that I have compiled and dyn.load-ed?

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Installation and Usage
=========================

1.1) Where can I find the latest version?

Go to any CRAN site (see http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/R/mirrors.html for a
list), navigate to the bin/windows/windows-NT/base directory and collect the
files you need. You will need at least the files

      rw06xxb.zip rw06xxh.zip

and will probably want rw06xxw.zip (the HTML format help files). Optionally,
you can also download rw06xxl.zip (the LaTeX format help files, used for
offline printing), and the installer, rwinst.exe.

1.2) How do I install R for Windows?

First, you need Windows 95 or 98 or NT4 (or possibly earlier): Windows
3.11+win32s will not work. Your file system must allow long file names (as
is likely except perhaps for some network-mounted systems).

The simplest way is to run the installer (double-click on the icon for
rwinst.exe and navigate its wizard-like pages).
Alternatively, choose a location and unzip the zip files (with a tool that
preserves long file names and the directory structure: we recommend the
INFO-ZIP project's unzip). All the files will unpack into a directory called
rw06xx, for some `xx'.

Choose a working directory for R. Make a shortcut to rw06xx\bin\Rgui.exe on
your desktop or somewhere on the Start file tree. Right-click the shortcut,
select Properties... and change the `Start in' field to your working
directory.

You may also want to add command-line arguments at the end of the Target
field. We use --vsize 10M --nsize 250k.


1.3) How do I run it?

Just double-click on the shortcut you prepared at installation.

If you want to set up another project, make a new shortcut or use the
existing one, and change the `Start in' field of the Properties.


1.4) I am using Windows NT and I get a GPF when I try to start rgui.exe or
rterm.exe for the command line.

This happened prior to rw0633. We believe this is completely solved in
rw0633 and later: please upgrade.


1.5) How can I manage my work keeping workspaces for different projects in
different directories?

Create a separate shortcut for each project: see Q1.3. All the paths to
files used by R are relative to the starting directory, so setting the
`Start in' field automatically helps separate projects.


1.6) How do I print from R?

It depends what you want to print.

   * You can print the graphics window from its menu or by using
     dev.print().
   * You can print from the R console or pager by File | Print.
   * You can print help files from the page or HTML browser.
   * If you have configured RHOME/bin/helpPRINT.bat and have latex installed
     you can print help files by help(fn_name, offline=T).


1.7) Can I use R BATCH?

No, but you can set up a batch file using rterm.exe. A sample batch file
might contain (as one line)

path_to_R\bin\rterm.exe --vsize 10M --nsize 250k  --no-restore --no-save %1 > %1.out


1.8) Can I use rw06xx with ESS and emacs?

Yes. Some time soon versions of ESS (5.1.6 has prototype support for rw0633)
will come with support for this version of R. If yours does not, try editing
essd-r.el to have

      (inferior-ess-start-args . "--ess"))

and make sure you give the full path to Rterm.exe as the R executable. (You
can add other flags like --vsize 10M after -ess.) No guarantees, but it
works for us with ESS-5.0.

For help with ESS, please send email to ESS-help@stat.ethz.ch, not the R
mailing lists.


2) Packages
===========

2.1) Can I install packages (libraries) in this version?

Yes, of course. The easy way is to see if a pre-compiled binary version of
the package is available: look on CRAN at bin/windows/windows-NT/contrib. If
there is, download the zip file and unpack it in the rw06xx\library
directory, using unzip or similar, or using the installer rwinst.exe.

If there is not a binary version or that is not up-to-date or you prefer
compiling from source, get rw06xxsp.zip from the distribution (see Q1.1) and
unpack it in rw06xx. Then cd src\gnuwin32 and read README.packages. You will
need to collect and install several tools to use this. Once you have done
so, installation is easy: just run `make pkg-pkgname'. To check the package
(run all the examples on its help pages) use `make pkgcheck-pkgname'.


2.2) I don't have permission to write to the rw06xx\library directory. Is
this fatal?

You can install packages anywhere and use the environment variable RLIBS to
point to the library location(s). You can also set the R variable `.lib.loc'
in your .Rprofile or when running R.

Suppose your packages are in installed in p:\mylibs. Then you can EITHER

set RLIBS to p:\mylibs

OR put in the .Rprofile in the working directory or your home directory

      .lib.loc <- c("p:/mylibs", .Library)

OR use a package by, e.g.

      library(MASS, lib.loc="p:/mylibs")

How you set an environment variable is system specific: in 9x you can set
them in autoexec.bat or in an MS-DOS window from which you launch
Rgui/Rterm. Under NT you can use the control panel. You can also set them on
the command line, for example in the shortcut you could have

      path_to_R\bin\rgui.exe --vsize 10M --nsize 250k RLIBS=e:/R/library

and from rw0641 you can set variables in a file Renviron in your home
directory, for example

      RLIBS=e:/R/library
      R_VSIZE=10M
      R_NSIZE=400k

You can also build packages anywhere, but that is much trickier: it is
simpler to install a private copy of R to do the building.


2.3) The packages I installed do not appear in the HTML help system.

HTML help only works for packages installed in rw06xx\library.

(Information for rw0633 or later) To update the HTML help files after you
have installed a binary package, run

      > link.html.help()

at the R prompt. (The source-code installation does this automatically, and
if you have that installed you can use (preferably)

      cd rw06xx\src\gnuwin32\help
      make indices

instead.)


2.4) The functions in the packages I installed are not found by the HTML
help search system.

The following conditions need to hold:

   * the package is installed in rw06xx\library.
   * you are using rw0633 or later.
   * the package contains a CONTENTS file in top-level directory (many of
     the binary distributions do not).
   * you updated the indices as described in the answer to Q2.2 after
     installing the package.

If those all hold true, this works for us.


3) Windows Features
===================

3.1) What should I expect to behave differently from the Unix/GNU-Linux
version of R?

   * R commands can be interrupted by Esc in rgui.exe and Ctrl-break in
     rterm.exe: Ctrl-C is used for copying in the GUI version.
   * Command-line editing is always available, but is much simpler than the
     readline-based editing on Unix. For rgui.exe, the menu item `Help |
     Console' will give details.
   * The commands history is saved between sessions only on rgui.exe, and it
     is always saved.
   * Using help.start() does not automatically send help requests to the
     browser: use options(htmlhelp=T) to turn this on.
   * The HTML help system can only access packages installed in the standard
     place.
   * Paths to files (e.g. in source()) can be specified with either "/" or
     "\\".
   * system() is slightly different: see its help page and that of shell().


3.2) I hear about some nifty features: please tell me about them!

You have read the README? There are file menus on the R console, pager and
graphics windows. You can source and save from those menus, and copy the
graphics to gif, postscript or metafile. As from rw0641 there are
right-click menus giving shortcuts to menu items, and optionally toolbars
with buttons giving shortcuts to frequent operations.

If you resize the R console the options(width=) is automatically set to the
console width (unless disabled in the configuration file).

The graphics has a history mechanism. As the README says:

`The History menu allows the recording of plots. When plots have been
recorded they can be reviewed by PgUp and PgDn, saved and replaced.
Recording can be turned on automatically (the Recording item on the list) or
individual plots can be added (Add or the INS key). The whole plot history
can be saved to or retrieved from an R variable in the global environment.

There is only one graphics history shared by all the x11 devices.'

The R console and graphics windows have configuration files stored in the
RHOME\etc directory called Rconsole and (rw0633 and later) Rdevga; you can
keep personal copies in your HOME directory. They contain comments which
should suffice for you to edit them to your preferences. For more details
see ?Rconsole.


4) Workspaces
=============

4.1) My workspace gets saved in a strange place: how do I stop this?

Have you changed the working directory?: see Q4.2.

Prior to rw0633, using the file dialog boxes from the menus to navigate the
file system changes the working directory. Either don't use them, or use the
`Source file' menu item and navigate back to where you want the workspace
(.RData) saved before quitting Rgui.


4.2) How do I store my workspace in a different place?

Use the `File | Change Dir' menu item to select a new working directory:
this defaults to the last directory you loaded a file from. From rw0641 this
has a browse button. The workspace is saved in the working directory. You
can also save a snapshot of the workspage from the `Save Image' menu item.


4.3) Can I load workspaces saved under Unix/GNU-Linux?

Yes, on rw0633 or later. The converse (saving on Windows, loading on Unix)
also works.


5) The R Console and Fonts
==========================

5.1) I would like to be able to use Japanese fonts in the console and to
annotate graphs.

We believe this is possible by setting suitable fonts in the Rconsole and
Rdevga configuration files (see Q3.2). You can specify additional fonts in
Rdevga, and use them by

      par(font=, font.lab=, font.main=, font.sub=)

Nineteen fonts are specified (as 1 to 19) by default: you can add to these
(up to 13 more) or replace them.


5.2) I don't see characters with accents at the R console, for example in
?text.

You need to specify a font in Rconsole (see Q3.2) that supports latin1
encoding. The default, Courier New, does on our systems, as does FixedSys.
This may be a problem in other locales, especially for non-Western European
languages.


5.3) When using Rgui, the output to the console seems to be delayed.

This is deliberate: the console output is buffered and re-written in chunks
to be less distracting. You can turn buffering off or on from the Misc menu:
Ctrl-W toggles the setting.

If you are sourcing R code or writing from a function, there is another
option. A call to the R function flush.console() will write out the buffer
and so update the console.


6) Building from Source
=======================

6.1) How can I compile R from source?

Get the R sources and the corresponding file rw06xxs.zip from the
distribution (see Q1.1). Suppose you want to compile R-0.64.0.

      tar zxvf R-0.64.0.tgz (ignore warnings about aux)
      cd R-0.64.0
      unzip ...\rw0640s
      cd src\gnuwin32

Now read the README and set up all the tools needed. Then you can just use
`make', sit back and wait. (A complete build takes about 15 minutes on a
300MHz PII with a fast local disc.)

You do need to compile under a case-honouring file system: we found that a
samba-mounted file system (which maps all file names to lower case) did not
work.


6.2) How do I debug code that I have compiled and dyn.load-ed?

First, build a version of the R system with debugging information by

      make clean
      make DEBUG=T

and make a debug version of your package by

      make DEBUG=T pkg-mypkg

Then you can debug by

      gdb /path/to/rw0xxx/bin/Rgui.exe

However, note

   * gdb will only be able to find the source code if we run in the location
     where the source was compiled (rw0xxx/src/gnuwin32 for the main system,
     rw0xxx/src/library/mypkg/src for a package), unless told otherwise by
     the directory.

   * It is only possible to set breakpoints in a DLL after the DLL has been
     loaded. So a way to examine the function tukeyline in package eda might
     be

           gdb ../../../../bin/Rgui.exe
           (gdb) break WinMain
           (gdb) run
           [ stops with R.dll loaded ]
           (gdb) break R_ReadConsole
           (gdb) continue
           [ stops with console running ]
           (gdb) continue
           Rconsole> library(eda)
           (gdb) break tukeyline
           (gdb) continue

   * Windows has little support for signals, so the usual idea of running a
     program under a debugger and sending it a signal to interrupt it and
     drop control back to the debugger does not work.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited 3 May 1999 by Brian Ripley ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk