The R Project SVN R

\name{options}
\alias{options}
\alias{.Options}
\alias{getOption}
\title{Options Settings}
\usage{
options(\dots)
getOption(x)
.Options
}
%%-- NOTE : Keep the list up-to-date,
%%-- ====   Consider also the leading comments in ../../../main/options.c
\arguments{
  \item{\dots}{any options can be defined, using \code{name = value}.

    However, only the ones below are used in ``base \R''.

    Further, \code{options('name') == options()['name']}, see the example.
  }

  \item{prompt}{a string, used for \R's prompt; should usually end in a
    blank (\code{" "}).}

  \item{continue}{a string setting the prompt used for lines which continue
    over one line.}

  \item{width}{controls the number of characters on a line.  You may
    want to change this if you re-size the window that \R is running in.
    Valid values are 10\dots10000 with default normally 80. (The valid
    values are in file \file{Print.h} and can be changed by re-compiling
    \R.)}

  \item{digits}{controls the number of digits to print when printing
    numeric values.  It is a suggestion only.  Valid values are 1\dots22
    with default 7.}

  \item{editor}{sets the default text editor, e.g., for
    \code{\link{edit}}.  Set from the environment variable \code{VISUAL}
    on UNIX.}

  \item{pager}{the (stand-alone) program used for displaying ASCII files on
    \R's console.
#ifdef unix
   Defaults to \file{\$R\_HOME/bin/pager}.
#endif
#ifdef windows
   Defaults to \code{"internal"}, which uses a pager similar to the GUI
   console. Another possibility is \code{"console"} to use the console itself.
#endif
  }

  \item{browser}{default HTML browser used by \code{\link{help.start}()}
    on UNIX.}

  \item{mailer}{default mailer used by \code{\link{bug.report}()}. can
    be \code{"none"}.}

  \item{contrasts}{the default \code{\link{contrasts}} used in model
    fitting such as with \code{\link{aov}} or \code{\link{lm}}.  A
    character vector of length two, the first giving the function to be
    used with unordered factors and the second the function to be used
    with ordered factors.}

  \item{expressions}{sets a limit on the number of nested expressions that
    will be evaluated.  This is especially important on the Macintosh
    since stack overflow is likely if this is set too high.
    Valid values are 25\dots100000 with default 500.}

  \item{keep.source}{When \code{TRUE}, the source code for functions
    (newly defined or loaded) is stored in their \code{"source"}
    attribute (see \code{\link{attr}}) allowing comments to be kept in
    the right places.

    The default is \code{\link{interactive}()}, i.e., \code{TRUE} for
    interactive use.}

  \item{keep.source.pkgs}{As for \code{keep.source}, for functions in
    packages loaded by \code{\link{library}} or \code{\link{require}}.
    Defaults to \code{FALSE} unless the environment variable
    \code{R_KEEP_PKG_SOURCE} is set to \code{yes}.}

  \item{na.action}{the name of a function for treating missing values
    (\code{\link{NA}}'s) for certain situations.}

  \item{papersize}{the default paper format used by \code{\link{postscript}};
    set by environment variable \code{R_PAPERSIZE} when \R is started
    and defaulting to \code{"a4"} if that is unset or invalid.}

  \item{printcmd}{the command used by \code{\link{postscript}} for
    printing; set by environment variable \code{R_PRINTCMD} when \R is
    started. This should be a command that expects either input to be piped
    to \file{stdin} or to be given a single filename argument.}
#ifdef unix
  \item{latexcmd, dvipscmd}{character strings giving commands to be used
    in off-line printing of help pages.}
#endif

  \item{show.signif.stars, show.coef.Pvalues}{logical, affecting P value
    printing, see \code{\link{print.coefmat}}.}

  \item{ts.eps}{the relative tolerance for certain time series
    (\code{\link{ts}}) computations.}

  \item{error}{an expression governing the handling of non-catastrophic
    errors such as those generated by \code{\link{stop}} as well as by
    signals and internally detected errors. The default expression is
    \code{NULL}: see \code{\link{stop}} for the behaviour in that case.
    The function \code{\link{dump.frames}} provides one alternative that
    allows post-mortem debugging.}

  \item{show.error.messages}{a logical. Should error messages be
    printed?  Intended for use with \code{\link{try}} or a
    user-installed error handler.}

  \item{warn}{sets the handling of warning messages.  If \code{warn}
    is negative all warnings are ignored.  If \code{warn} is zero
    (the default) warnings are stored until the top--level function
    returns.  If fewer than 10 warnings were signalled they will be printed
    otherwise a message saying how many (max 50) were signalled.  A
    top--level variable called \code{last.warning} is created and can be
    viewed through the function \code{\link{warnings}}.  If \code{warn} is
    one, warnings are printed as they occur.  If \code{warn} is two or
    larger all warnings are turned into errors.}

  \item{check.bounds}{logical, defaulting to \code{FALSE}.  If true, a
    \link{warning} is produced whenever a ``generalized vector''
    (atomic or \code{\link{list}}) is extended, by something like
    \code{x <- 1:3; x[5] <- 6}.}

  \item{echo}{logical.  Only used in non-interactive mode, when it
    controls whether input is echoed. Command-line options
    \code{--quiet} and \code{--slave} set this initially to \code{FALSE}.}

  \item{verbose}{logical.  Should \R report extra information on
    progress? Set to \code{TRUE} by the command-line option
    \code{--verbose}.}

  \item{device}{a character string giving the default device for that
    session. This defaults to the normal screen device (e.g. \code{x11},
    \code{windows} or \code{gtk}) for an interactive session, and
    \code{postscript} in batch use or if a screen is not available.}
#ifdef unix
  \item{X11colortype}{The default colour type for \code{\link{X11}} devices.}
#endif

  \item{CRAN}{The URL of the preferred CRAN node for use by
    \code{\link{update.packages}}. Defaults to
    \url{http://cran.r-project.org}.}

  \item{unzip}{the command used unzipping help files.
#ifdef windows
    Defaults to "internal" when the internal unzip DLL is used.
#endif
  }
  \item{de.cellwidth}{integer: the cell widths (number of  characters)
    to be used in the data editor \code{\link{dataentry}}.  If this is
    unset, 0, negative or \code{NA}, variable cell widths are used.}

  \item{x}{a character string holding one of the above option names.}
}
\description{
  \code{options} allows the user to set and examine a variety of global
  ``options'' which affect the way in which \R computes and displays
  its results.
}
\details{
  Invoking \code{options()} with no arguments returns a list with the
  current values of the options.  To access the value of a single
  option, one should use \code{getOption("width")}, e.g., rather than
  \code{options("width")} which is a \emph{list} of length one.

  The default settings of some of these options are
  \tabular{llll}{
    \code{prompt} \tab \code{"> "} \tab
    \code{continue} \tab \code{"+ "}\cr
    \code{width}  \tab \code{80} \tab
    \code{digits} \tab \code{7}\cr
    \code{expressions} \tab \code{500} \tab
    \code{keep.source} \tab \code{TRUE}\cr
    \code{show.signif.stars} \tab \code{TRUE} \tab
    \code{show.coef.Pvalues} \tab \code{TRUE}\cr
    \code{na.action} \tab \code{na.omit} \tab
    \code{ts.eps} \tab \code{1e-5}\cr
    \code{error} \tab \code{NULL} \tab
    \code{warn} \tab \code{0}\cr
    \code{echo} \tab \code{TRUE} \tab
    \code{verbose} \tab \code{FALSE}
  }
  Others are set from environment variables or are platform-dependent.
}
\value{
  A list (in any case) with the previous values of the options changed,
  or all options when no arguments were given.
}
\examples{
options() # printing all current options
op <- options(); str(op) # nicer printing

# .Options is the same:
all(sapply(1:length(op), function(i) all(.Options[[i]] == op[[i]])))

options('width')[[1]] == options()$width # the latter needs more memory
options(digits=20)
pi

# set the editor, and save previous value
old.o <- options(editor="nedit")
old.o

options(check.bounds = TRUE)
x <- NULL; x[4] <- "yes" # gives a warning

options(op)     # reset (all) initial options
options('digits')

\dontrun{## set contrast handling to be like S
options(contrasts=c("contr.helmert", "contr.poly"))
}
\dontrun{## on error, terminate the R session with error status 66
options(error=quote(q("no", status=66, runLast=FALSE)))
stop("test it")
}
\dontrun{## set an error action for debugging: see ?debugger.
options(error=quote(dump.frames()))
## A possible setting for non-interactive sessions
options(error=quote({dump.frames(to.file=TRUE); q()}))
}}
\keyword{environment}
\keyword{error}
\keyword{print}