From ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk  Mon Jul 29 09:08:18 2013
From: ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk (Prof Brian Ripley)
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 08:08:18 +0100
Subject: [Rd] Shell Function not on Linux
In-Reply-To: <A4D0AD48C137224D9E532742F418928A1CFB8D88@BL2PRD0111MB520.prod.exchangelabs.com>
References: <A4D0AD48C137224D9E532742F418928A1CFB8D88@BL2PRD0111MB520.prod.exchangelabs.com>
Message-ID: <51F614E2.7040209@stats.ox.ac.uk>

You should read the documentation.  shell() is specific to Windows, as 
on all other platforms system() runs a shell.  (This is an OS-level 
difference: Windows is not POSIX compliant.)

See also the manuals, e.g. 
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html#Operating-system-access 
and FAQs, e.g.
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rw-FAQ.html#What-should-I-expect-to-behave-differently-from-the-Unix-version

This was really a question for R-help, not R-devel.


On 29/07/2013 08:00, Dario Strbenac wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Using R for Windows, I am able to use the shell function :
>
> R version 3.0.1 (2013-05-16) -- "Good Sport"
> Copyright (C) 2013 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
> Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
>
>     ...                                               ...
>
>> shell()
> Error in shell() : argument "cmd" is missing, with no default
>
> But, on Linux, it isn't found.
>
> R version 3.0.1 (2013-05-16) -- "Good Sport"
> Copyright (C) 2013 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>
>     ...                                               ...
>
>> shell()
> Error: could not find function "shell"
>
> Other base functions are found, though.
>
>> plot()
> Error in xy.coords(x, y, xlabel, ylabel, log) :
>    argument "x" is missing, with no default
>> sum()
> [1] 0
>
> Both of these were new R sessions. What should I do now ? Both of the installations were done by me, but on the Linux server, even the system-wide installation of R maintained by the IT administrator doesn't have it.
>
> ~$ /usr/bin/R
>
> R version 2.15.2 (2012-10-26) -- "Trick or Treat"
> Copyright (C) 2012 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
> ISBN 3-900051-07-0
> Platform: i486-pc-linux-gnu (32-bit)
>
>     ...                                               ...
>
>> shell()
> Error: could not find function "shell"
>
> What should I do now ?
>
> --------------------------------------
> Dario Strbenac
> PhD Student
> University of Sydney
> Camperdown NSW 2050
> Australia
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595



[Rd] Shell Function not on Linux
Prof Brian Ripley