tools::md5sum gives a warning if it receives a directory as an argument on Unix but not on Windows.
>From what I understand, this happens because in Windows a directory is not treated as a file so fopen returns NULL. Then, NA is returned without a warning. On Unix, a directory is treated as a file so fopen does not return NULL so md5 is run and fails, leading to a warning. This is a good opportunity for me to understand further (in addition to [1] and the many places where OS special cases are mentioned) in which cases R tries to behave the same on Windows as on Unix and in which cases it allows for differences (in this case, a warning vs. no warning). For example, it would be straightforward to create a patch that would lead to the same behavior in this case. tools::md5sum could either issue a warning for each argument that is a directory or it could issue no warning (consistent with file.info). Would either patch be considered? Or is this difference encouraged because the concept of a file is different on Unix than on Windows? Scott [1] http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rw-FAQ.html#What-should-I-expect-to-behave-differently-from-the-Unix-version -- Scott Kostyshak Economics PhD Candidate Princeton University ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
