From maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch  Sat Apr 19 14:57:04 2014
From: maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch (Martin Maechler)
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 14:57:04 +0200
Subject: [Rd] Can the output of Sys.getenv() be improved?
In-Reply-To: <E66794E69CFDE04D9A70842786030B933FAC7207@PA-MBX01.na.tibco.com>
References: <8EE4E2C595735A4EAEC2A3311537FE4D15B84B24@DCPWPEXMBX03.mdanderson.edu>
	<E66794E69CFDE04D9A70842786030B933FAC7207@PA-MBX01.na.tibco.com>
Message-ID: <21330.29344.628971.904268@stat.math.ethz.ch>

>>>>> William Dunlap <wdunlap at tibco.com>
>>>>>     on Fri, 18 Apr 2014 16:50:22 +0000 writes:

    >> Within an R session, type Sys.getenv() will list all the
    >> environment variables, but each one of them occupies
    >> about a page, so scrolling to find one is difficult. Is
    >> this because I don't know how to use it or something
    >> could be improved?

    > Attaching the class "simple.list" to the output of
    > Sys.getenv() gives it a nicer print method:

    >> structure(Sys.getenv(), class="simple.list")
    >                            _ !

Good idea; this is something we could do unconditionally, i.e.,
return from Sys.getenv().
It would hardly break code, 
as simple.list only has a print and a `[` method.

It would help people like Jun and could hardly harm, AFAICS.

Opinions?



[Rd] Can the output of Sys.getenv() be improved?
Martin Maechler