Apologies, Duncan and Martin. I didn't check "R --help" first. You're quite right, lots of embedded hyphens.
Best Regards, Bill. W. Michels, Ph.D. On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 2:42 PM Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.dun...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 27/09/2019 5:36 p.m., William Michels via R-help wrote: > > Hi Martin, > > > > '--no-echo' > > > > ....or.... > > > > '--no_echo' > > > > Obviously you may prefer the first, but I hope you might consider the > > second. > > Are you serious? That's a terrible suggestion. Run "R --help" and > you'll see *no* options with underscores, and a dozen with embedded hyphens. > > Duncan Murdoch > > > > > Best Regards, > > > > W. Michels, Ph.D. > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 9:04 AM Martin Maechler > > <maech...@stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote: > >> > >>>>>>> Martin Maechler > >>>>>>> on Mon, 23 Sep 2019 16:14:36 +0200 writes: > >> > >>>>>>> Richard O'Keefe > >>>>>>> on Sat, 21 Sep 2019 09:39:18 +1200 writes: > >> > >> >> Ah, *now* we're getting somewhere. There is something > >> >> that *can* be done that's genuinely helpful. > >> >>> From the R(1) manual page: > >> >> -q, --quiet Don't print startup message > >> > >> >> --silent Same as --quiet > >> > >> >> --slave Make R run as quietly as possible > >> > >> >> It might have been better to use --nobanner instead of > >> >> --quiet. So perhaps > >> > >> >> -q, --quiet Don't print the startup message. This is > >> >> the only output that is suppressed. > >> > >> >> --silent Same as --quiet. Suppress the startup > >> >> message only. > >> > >> >> --slave Make R run as quietly as possible. This is > >> >> for use when running R as a subordinate process. See > >> >> "Introduction to Sub-Processes in R" > >> >> > >> https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/subprocess/vignettes/intro.html > >> >> for an example. > >> > >> > Thank you, Stephen and Richard. > >> > >> > I think we (the R Core Team) *can* make the description a bit > >> > more verbose. However, as practically all "--<foo>" descriptions > >> > are fitting in one short line, (and as the 'subprocess' package is > >> just an > >> > extension pkg, and may disappear (and more reasons)) I'd like to > >> > be less verbose than your proposal. > >> > >> > What about > >> > >> > -q, --quiet Don't print startup message > >> > >> > --silent Same as --quiet > >> > >> > --slave Make R run as quietly as possible. For use when > >> > runnning R as sub(ordinate) process. > >> > >> > If you look more closely, you'll notice that --slave is not much > >> > quieter than --quiet, the only (?) difference being that the > >> > input is not copied and (only "mostly") the R prompt is also not > >> printed. > >> > >> > And from my experiments (in Linux (Fedora 30)), one might even > >> > notice that in some cases --slave prints the R prompt (to stderr?) > >> > which one might consider bogous (I'm not: not wanting to spend > >> > time fixing this platform-independently) : > >> > >> > --slave : > >> > ------------------------ > >> > >> > MM@lynne$ echo '(i <- 1:3) > >> > i*10' | R-3.6.1 --slave --vanilla > >> >> [1] 1 2 3 > >> > [1] 10 20 30 > >> > MM@lynne$ f=/tmp/Rslave.out$$; echo '(i <- 1:3) > >> > i*10' | R-3.6.1 --slave --vanilla | tee $f > >> >> [1] 1 2 3 > >> > [1] 10 20 30 > >> > MM@lynne$ cat $f > >> > [1] 1 2 3 > >> > [1] 10 20 30 > >> > >> > --quiet : > >> > ------------------------ > >> > >> > MM@lynne$ f=/tmp/Rquiet.out$$; echo '(i <- 1:3) > >> > i*10' | R-3.6.1 --quiet --vanilla | tee $f > >> >> (i <- 1:3) > >> > [1] 1 2 3 > >> >> i*10 > >> > [1] 10 20 30 > >> >> > >> > MM@lynne$ cat $f > >> >> (i <- 1:3) > >> > [1] 1 2 3 > >> >> i*10 > >> > [1] 10 20 30 > >> >> > >> > MM@lynne$ > >> > >> > ------------------------ > >> > >> > But there's a bit more to it: In my examples above, both --quiet > >> > and --slave where used together with --vanilla. In general > >> > --slave *also* never saves, i.e., uses the equivalent of > >> > q('no'), where as --quiet does [ask or ...]. > >> > >> > Last but not least, from very simply reading R's source code on > >> > this, it becomes blatant that you can use '-s' instead of > >> '--slave', > >> > but we (R Core) have probably not documented that on purpose (so > >> > we could reserve it for something more important, and redefine > >> > the simple use of '-s' some time in the future ?) > >> > >> > So, all those who want to restrict their language could use '-s' > >> > for now. In addition, we could add >> one << other alias to > >> > --slave, say --subprocess (or --quieter ? or ???) > >> > and one could make that the preferred use some time in the future. > >> > >> > Well, these were another two hours of time *not* spent improving > >> > R technically, but spent reading e-mails, source code, and > >> considering. > >> > Maybe well spent, maybe not ... > >> > >> > Martin Maechler > >> > ETH Zurich and R Core Team > >> > >> With in the R Core Team we have considered the issue. > >> > >> As a consequence, I have committed a few minutes ago code changes > >> that replace '--slave' by '--no-echo' . > >> [This will be in R-devel versions from svn rev 77229 and of > >> course in the "big step" release around April 2020]. > >> > >> Among other considerations, we found that '--no-echo' was > >> really much more self-explaining, as indeed the command line > >> option turns off the echo'ing of the R code that is executed, > >> and on the C level is indeed very much related to R level > >> > >> options(echo = "no") > >> > >> For back compatibility reasons, the old command line option will > >> continue to work so the many shell and other scripts that use > >> it, will not stop working. > >> > >> > >> Best regards, > >> Martin Maechler > >> ETH Zurich and R Core Team > >> > >> ______________________________________________ > >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > >> PLEASE do read the posting guide > >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
