base (version 3.1.1)

pushBack: Push Text Back on to a Connection

Description

Functions to push back text lines onto a connection, and to enquire how many lines are currently pushed back.

Usage

pushBack(data, connection, newLine = TRUE, encoding = c("", "bytes", "UTF-8"))
pushBackLength(connection)
clearPushBack(connection)

Arguments

data

a character vector.

connection

A connection.

newLine

logical. If true, a newline is appended to each string pushed back.

encoding

character. See details.

Value

pushBack and clearPushBack() return nothing, invisibly.pushBackLength returns the number of lines currently pushed back.

Details

Several character strings can be pushed back on one or more occasions. The occasions form a stack, so the first line to be retrieved will be the first string from the last call to pushBack. Lines which are pushed back are read prior to the normal input from the connection, by the normal text-reading functions such as readLines and scan.

Pushback is only allowed for readable connections in text mode.

Not all uses of connections respect pushbacks, in particular the input connection is still wired directly, so for example parsing commands from the console and scan("") ignore pushbacks on stdin.

When character strings with a marked encoding (see Encoding) are pushed back they are converted to the current encoding if encoding = "". This may involve representing characters as if they cannot be converted. They will be converted to UTF-8 if encoding = "UTF-8" or left as-is if encoding = "bytes".

See Also

connections, readLines.

Examples

zz <- textConnection(LETTERS)
readLines(zz, 2)
pushBack(c("aa", "bb"), zz)
pushBackLength(zz)
readLines(zz, 1)
pushBackLength(zz)
readLines(zz, 1)
readLines(zz, 1)
close(zz)