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- Change temporary directory 3 answers
I'm using a Windows virtual machine and I have both R and RStudio installed on it and I'm trying to change the directory where R writes the temporary files.
When I start R, I try changing the temporary directory and then close R. When I restart R and try tempdir()
it still shows the old directory, as if nothing has happened. However, if after attempting to change the temporary directory in R I start RStudio instead of restarting R, when I try tempdir()
in RStudio it shows the new/updated directory I set in R. How is this possible? What is happening? Why does only RStudio respond to my changing of the temporary directory but not R, even though that's where I'm changing the directory?
How exactly are you setting the temporary directory? The R documentation in
?tempdir
says this:Presumedly, if you have the
TMPDIR
environment variable set, R (and hence RStudio) should just do the right thing. Note that you'll have to set before R / RStudio is launched; odds are you can accomplish this by setting it within~/.Renviron
or~/.Rprofile
.See also: Change temporary directory
In windows, for me what worked is creating a file named Renviron.site and filling it with
Where E:/rtemp was the path to the directory where I wanted the temporary files. So you create a new text file, fill it with the above, and change its name (and extension) to Renviron.site.
Put it inside the R installation directory, in the directory etc (e.g. C:\Program Files\R\R-3.3.2\etc) and restart RStudio or R.