Re: R session and plotting in x11 window

[Berry, Charles]

> On Apr 4, 2020, at 4:27 PM, Matt Price <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know much about the difference between an R session opened by 
> typing M-x R, and the R session opened by org-babel?


Short answer: almost none.

Long answer: what `org-babel-R-initite-session' and friends do.

> 
> I'm just learning R and my usual method for learning a language is to keep a 
> kind of notebook in org with code snippets they I can execute and iterate on 
> rapidly as I learn. This works great in R when I'm just doing math.  When I 
> am working on plots, it would be nice to have them open up quickly either in 
> emacs or in the standard x11 window that R session opened switch M-x R opens 
> up.  
> 
> I know I can set the src block headers to produ e a file, but when I'm just 
> iterating rapidly I often switch back and forth between a data output and a 
> graphical output, and typing/erasing those headers is clunky and slow. It 
> would be easier to just paste the plot command into the console and have it 
> pop open the window... But that doesn't seem to work. Anyone know if I can 
> tweak something to make that possible?
> 


I sam really puzzled by this. Do you have an ECM that illustrates this?

Working interactively on my Mac (Quartz - X11 is the device), I routinely do 
what you describe - usually working from the src edit buffer - and the plots 
are displayed (and older plots are available via clover-left or some such).

If I had to guess, I'd say that you are opening an R session, but not using it. 
If you execute a src block, but it does not have a `:session' header, a new 
instance of R will create a plot file and then exit. If you look in the default 
directory, you would see `Rplots.pdf' or some such.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that you opened a device that is 
holding on to all your plots. Try `dev.cur()' in R immediately before and after 
you create a plot and see what the result is.

HTH,

Chuck