Attempted addition to default packages at startup not running in RStudio

Question

I want to change my .Rprofile file so that the magrittr package loads automatically.

Following the threads on Stack Overflow on how to do this I created a text file with no '.txt' suffix and saved that in my home directory.

The contents of this file are simply

library("magrittr")

However when I exited R and started up again the error message

Error: 1:8: unexpected input
1: library(�
           ^

Was displayed on the first line of the window. I get similar messages when I have test code in the .Rprofile file such as

print("hello")

where the error message reads

Error: 1:6: unexpected input
1: print(�
         ^

Any suggestions would be much appreciated

Answer 1

Here is a simple way:

First we create a suitable (minimal) .Rprofile :

edd@max:~$ R -q
Hello from .Rprofile
> search()
 [1] ".GlobalEnv"        "package:stats"     "package:graphics" 
 [4] "package:grDevices" "package:utils"     "package:datasets" 
 [7] "package:magrittr"  "package:methods"   "Autoloads"        
[10] "package:base"     
> q()
Save workspace image? [y/n/c]: n
edd@max:~$ 

Then we test it:

 edd@max:~$ R -q Hello from .Rprofile > search() [1] ".GlobalEnv" "package:stats" "package:graphics" [4] "package:grDevices" "package:utils" "package:datasets" [7] "package:magrittr" "package:methods" "Autoloads" [10] "package:base" > q() Save workspace image? [y/n/c]: n edd@max:~$ 

Note how the search path includes package magrittr.

Many more options are detailed in help(Startup) .