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% File src/library/utils/man/browseURL.Rd
% Part of the R package, http://www.R-project.org
% Copyright 1995-2008 R Core Development Team
% Distributed under GPL 2 or later

\name{browseURL}
\alias{browseURL}
\title{Load URL into a WWW Browser}
\description{
  Load a given URL into a WWW browser.
}
\usage{
browseURL(url, browser = getOption("browser"), encodeIfNeeded = FALSE)
}
\arguments{
  \item{url}{a non-empty character string giving the URL to be loaded.}
  \item{browser}{a non-empty character string giving the name of the
    program to be used as hypertext browser.  It should be in the PATH,
    or a full path specified.  Alternatively, an \R function to be
    called to invoke the browser.
#ifdef windows
    
    Under Windows \code{NULL} is also allowed (and is the default), and
    implies that the file association mechanism will be used.
#endif
  }
  \item{encodeIfNeeded}{Should the URL be encoded by
    \code{\link{URLencode}} before passing to the browser?  This is not
    needed (and might be harmful) if the \code{browser} program/function
    itself does encoding, and can be harmful for \code{file://} URLs on some
    systems and for \code{http://} URLs passed to some CGI applications.
    Fortunately, most URLs do not need encoding.}
}
#ifdef unix
\details{
  The default browser is set by option \code{"browser"}, in turn set by
  the environment variable \env{R\_BROWSER} which is by default set
  in file \file{\var{\link[base:Rhome]{R\_HOME}}/etc/Renviron} to a choice made manually or
  automatically when \R was configured.  (See \code{\link{Startup}} for
  where to override that default value.)

  If \code{browser} supports remote control and \R knows how to perform
  it, the URL is opened in any already running browser or a new one if
  necessary.  This mechanism currently is available for browsers which
  support the \code{"-remote openURL(...)"} interface (which includes
  Opera 5/6, Mozilla >= 0.9.5 and Mozilla Firefox),
  Galeon, KDE konqueror (via kfmclient) and the GNOME interface to
  Mozilla.  Netscape 7.0 and Opera 7 behave slightly differently,
  and you will need
  to open them first.  Note that the type of browser is determined from
  its name, so this mechanism will only be used if the browser is
  installed under its canonical name.

  Because \code{"-remote"} will use any browser displaying on the X
  server (whatever machine it is running on), the remote control
  mechanism is only used if \code{DISPLAY} points to the local host.
  This may not allow displaying more than one URL at a time from a
  remote host.

  It is the caller's responsibility to encode \code{url} if necessary
  (see \code{\link{URLencode}}).  This can be tricky for file URLs,
  where the format accepted can depend on the browser and OS.
#ifdef windows
  Some browsers have required \code{:} be replaced by \code{|} in file
  paths: others do not accept that.  All seem to accept \code{\\} as a
  path separator even though the RFC1738 standard requires \code{/}.
#endif
}
#endif
#ifdef windows
\examples{
\dontrun{browseURL("http://www.r-project.org")
browseURL("file://d:/R/R-2.5.1/doc/html/index.html",
          browser="C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe")
}}
#endif
#ifdef unix
\examples{
\dontrun{## for KDE users who want to open files in a new tab
option(browser="kfmclient newTab") 
browseURL("http://www.r-project.org")
}}
#endif
\keyword{file}