RStudios GUI – the console

Hints for the RStudio console

1 Hints for working in the console

As mentioned elsewhere, the console lets you talk directly to the R interpreter and you will spend much time in the console testing out your code.

Here follows a number of practical simple hints on how to use the console:

1.1 Predictive texting

Write mean in the console and wait a short while – RStudio will present you with a list of functions etc in the current environment that starts with mean. Try scrolling through the list.

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1.2 Predictive texting .. which is adaptive

Write meaning_of_life <- 52 (ENTER) to create a new variable – now try out hint #1 again and you will see this new variable has been added to the list.

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1.3 Re-use and ammend previous commands

But the meaning of life is not 52, is it?¹ So we need to fix that.

In the console on an empty line, simply press the keyboard up-arrow and your previous command should re-appear, amend it to 42 and press ENTER. You can use the arrows to scroll up/down through a history of you console commands, in the current session.

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1.4 Sweeping away the clutter

In the top right hand corner of the console click the icon which resembles a broom. It clears the console window, but the console hisotry is retained.

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1.5 Running a command from the text editor

Open an empty R script in the text editor, enter print("copy, paste, execute") (CTRL+ENTER) – this command should be copied into the console and executed immediately.

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1.6 Running multiple commands from the text editor

In the text editor add another line below the first one: print("with CTRL-ENTER") – this time, highlight both lines (mouse: click+drag) before CTRL+ENTER.

Hint Check out the ‘Run’ dropdown button in the top right-hand corner of the text editor, to run all code or specific chunks.

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To copy the other way, from console to text editor, use the usual mouse-hightlight, CTRL-c and CTRL-v to copy paste.

Footnotes

1. According to the fictional supercomputer Deep Thought in Douglas Adams’ sci-fi universe, The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, is 42, but you probably already knew that :-)