guiDDEInstall {svIDE} | R Documentation |
These functions install and manage a DDE server to return context-sensitive calltips or completion lists to external IDE/code editors under Windows.
guiDDEInstall()
guiCallTip(code, file = NULL, onlyargs = FALSE, width = 60, location = FALSE)
guiComplete(code, file = NULL, sep = "|")
code |
a piece of R code (in a character string) to analyze. |
file |
a file where to return the result ("", or NULL for none). You can use "clipboard" to send the result to the clipboard under Windows only. |
onlyargs |
do we return the whole calltip or only the function arguments? |
width |
reformat the calltip to with (use 0 for not reformatting it). |
location |
if |
sep |
the separator to use between the item and its type in the list. |
These functions should be used to interact with an external program. Their result is returned invisibly for debugging purposes and is not intended to be use in R.
DDE is a communication protocol that exists only under Windows. Consequently, those functions cannot be used (yet) on other platforms.
On loading of the package, if the option(use.DDE = TRUE)
is defined, the
DDE server (guiDDEInstall()
) is automatically installed when the package
is loaded. Also if options(IDE = "[path.to.exe]")
is defined,
then that IDE is automatically started afterward.
Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean@sciviews.org>
## Not run:
## DDE exchange protocol is available ONLY under Windows!
## Also, this cannot be run by examples() but should be OK when pasted
## into an interactive R session with the tcltk package loaded
## Here is how you can test these features under Windows
options(use.DDE = TRUE)
library(svIDE) # This should automatically start the
## DDE server named 'TclEval SciViewsR', according to the option set
## Get some data in the user workspace
data(trees)
a <- 1
b <- "some text in the first instance of R"
#######################################################
## To test these functions in an external program, we need now
## to start a second instance of R. In this second instance, enter:
library(tcltk)
.Tcl("package require dde")
.Tcl("dde services TclEval {}")
## You should get 'TclEval SciViewsR' in the list
## if the server in the first instance is running
## Now, request a calltip for the function 'ls'
## This is done in two steps:
## 1) Execute the command 'guiCallTip' with this code chunk as argument
.Tcl("dde execute TclEval SciViewsR {guiCallTip {res <- ls(}}")
## 2) Retrieve the calltip from the variable SciViewsR_CallTip
.Tcl("dde request TclEval SciViewsR SciViewsR_CallTip")
## Another way to trigger DDE commands (for programs that do not support
## DDE is to use 'execdde.exe' of the tcltk2 package (see ?tk2dde)
## It is also possible to copy the calltip to a file, or to the clipboard
## by specifying it after the command (also the two additional arguments
## have their default values changed)
.Tcl("dde execute TclEval SciViewsR {guiCallTip {library(} clipboard TRUE 40 TRUE}")
## Look at what is in the clipboard
cat(readClipboard(), "\n")
## The process is similar to get completion lists
.Tcl("dde execute TclEval SciViewsR {guiComplete {iris$}}")
.Tcl("dde request TclEval SciViewsR SciViewsR_Complete")
## Get the list of variables in the user workspace of the first R instance
## into the clipboard (use also the other arguments to get the type of objects)
.Tcl("dde execute TclEval SciViewsR {guiComplete {} clipboard TRUE { - }}")
## Look at what is in the clipboard
cat(readClipboard(), "\n")
## End(Not run)