R devel - Mar 2011 - Bug in tools::compactPDF() in 2.13-0-alpha

Dear List,

There seems to be an bug in compactPDF() or at least an inconsistency
with the documented behaviour.

The documentations states:

Details:

     This by default makes use of ?qpdf?, available from <URL:
     http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/>, including a Windows binary.  If
     ?gs_cmd? is non-empty, GhostScript is used.

I don't have qpdf on my system so planned to use ghostscript. However,
the code for compactPDF() has as it's first few lines:

    if (!nzchar(Sys.which(qpdf))) 
        return()

So because I don't have qpdf, compactPDF() always returns NULL:
> nzchar(Sys.which(Sys.getenv("R_QPDF", "qpdf")))
[1] FALSE
> compactPDF("../analogue/pkg/inst/doc/analogue_methods.pdf",
gs_cmd = "/usr/bin/")
NULL

no matter what I do.

This is with:
> sessionInfo()
R version 2.13.0 alpha (2011-03-27 r55077)
Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8       LC_NUMERIC=C             
 [3] LC_TIME=en_GB.utf8        LC_COLLATE=en_GB.utf8    
 [5] LC_MONETARY=C             LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.utf8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_GB.utf8       LC_NAME=C                
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C              LC_TELEPHONE=C           
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C      

attached base packages:
[1] tools     stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets 
[7] methods   base 

Thanks,

Gavin
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 Dr. Gavin Simpson             [t] +44 (0)20 7679 0522
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On 11-03-27 8:48 AM, Gavin Simpson wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> There seems to be an bug in compactPDF() or at least an inconsistency
> with the documented behaviour.
Thanks, looks easy to fix.  I'll make the correction.  (A bit more below...)
>
> The documentations states:
>
> Details:
>
>       This by default makes use of ?qpdf?, available from<URL:
>       http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/>, including a Windows binary.  If
>       ?gs_cmd? is non-empty, GhostScript is used.
>
> I don't have qpdf on my system so planned to use ghostscript. However,
> the code for compactPDF() has as it's first few lines:
>
>      if (!nzchar(Sys.which(qpdf)))
>          return()
>
> So because I don't have qpdf, compactPDF() always returns NULL:
>
>> nzchar(Sys.which(Sys.getenv("R_QPDF", "qpdf")))
> [1] FALSE
>
>> compactPDF("../analogue/pkg/inst/doc/analogue_methods.pdf",
gs_cmd = "/usr/bin/")
That won't work:  you need the full path to the gs_cmd, not just its 
home directory.

Duncan Murdoch
> NULL
>
> no matter what I do.
>
> This is with:
>
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.13.0 alpha (2011-03-27 r55077)
> Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>
> locale:
>   [1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8       LC_NUMERIC=C
>   [3] LC_TIME=en_GB.utf8        LC_COLLATE=en_GB.utf8
>   [5] LC_MONETARY=C             LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.utf8
>   [7] LC_PAPER=en_GB.utf8       LC_NAME=C
>   [9] LC_ADDRESS=C              LC_TELEPHONE=C
> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] tools     stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets
> [7] methods   base
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gavin