Jack Kamm <jackk...@gmail.com> writes: > Ihor Radchenko <yanta...@posteo.net> writes: > >> Your patch appear to only add more confusion, IMHO. >> >> I feel that the description about :results file is confusing from the >> very beginning: > > Well, I guess ":results file" has confusing behavior. So it's > difficult to write accurate, comprehensive, non-confusing > documentation for it ;)
Not necessarily confusing. We just need to clearly separate :results file, :results graphics file, and :results file link. ":results file" imply that results of the code block are written to a file (the file is specified using header args). ":results file link" imply that results of the code block are interpreted as file link. The fact that presence of :file header arg overrides this behaviour is something we may want to reconsider - it is confusing. ":results graphics file" imply that graphics generated during code block execution is saved to file specified in the :file header args. This feature is only available for some backends that can derive graphics data from the source block. When :file is not specified, using the actual code block output is confusing, and we may want to reconsider this behaviour. >> :results file may currently imply three things: >> >> 1. Results of evaluation are the _contents_ of a file >> 2. Results of evaluation are the path to a file >> 3. Results of evaluation are discarded and Org just inserts a constant >> link, derived from header arguments. > ... > Laying out the 3 behaviors this way seems clearer. > > But I disagree that ":results graphics" means (3). It can behave as > (1) or (3), depending on the language. > > In practice (1) is the more common usage by far [*], and is also the > original intended use case [**]. Sorry, but I do not fully understand. Generated graphics is not what Org sees as "results of evaluation". I think it is well illustrated by #+begin_src R :file img.png hist(rnorm(100)) "img.png is going to contain this string." #+end_src #+begin_src R :file img.png :results graphics hist(rnorm(100)) "But now img.png is going to contain graphics." #+end_src The latter has nothing to do with block output, which is a string. -- Ihor Radchenko // yantar92, Org mode contributor, Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>. Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>, or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>
