>>>>> "David" == David Hinds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>> on Mon, 22 Aug 2005 23:34:15 +0000 (UTC) writes:
David> I've just implemented a generalization of R's text connections, to
David> also support reading/writing raw binary data. There is very little
David> new code to speak of. For input connections, I wrote code to
populate
David> the old text connection buffer from a raw vector, and provided a new
David> raw_read() method. For output connections, I wrote a raw_write() to
David> append to a raw vector. On input, the mode (text or binary) is
David> determined by the data type of the input object; on output, I use the
David> requested output mode (i.e. "w" / "wb"). For example:
> con <- loopConnection("r", "wb")
> a <- c(10,100,1000)
> writeBin(a, con, size=4)
> r
[1] 00 00 20 41 00 00 c8 42 00 00 7a 44
> close(con)
> con <- loopConnection(r)
> readBin(con, "double", n=3, size=4)
[1] 10 100 1000
> close(con)
David> I think "loop connection" is a better name for this
David> sort of connection than "text connection" was even
David> for the old version; that confuses the mode of the
David> connection (text vs binary) with the mechanism (file,
David> socket, etc).
..........
In the mean time, I think it has become clear that
"loopconnection" isn't necessarily a better name, and that
textConnection() has been there in "the S litterature" for a
good reason and for quite a while.
Let's forget about the naming and the exact UI for the moment.
I think the main point of David's proposal is still worth
consideration: One way to see text connections is as a way to
treat some kind of R objects as "generalized files" i.e., connections.
And AFAICS David proposes to enlarge the kind of R objects that
can be dealt with as connections
from {"character"}
to {"character", "raw"}
something which has some appeal to me.
IIUC, Brian Ripley is doubting the potential use for the
proposed generalization, whereas David makes a point of someone
else (the 'caTools' author) having written raw2bin / bin2raw function
for a related use case.
Maybe you can elaborate on the above a bit, David?
In any case, as you might have guessed by now, R-core would have
been more positive to a proposal to generalize current
textConnection() - fully back-compatibly - rather than renaming
it first.
Best regards,
Martin
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