Setting working directory to ${fileDirname} when opening terminal

[janxmares]

Hi,

I might be missing something, but is there a way to set the working directory to the currently opened file when launching R terminal in VSC?

I could not find any workaround in the current setup.

Many thanks!

[andycraig]

Hi, as far as I know there is no feature for this in this extension. But a couple of months ago VSCode added a command to open a terminal in the location of the current file: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_39#_open-new-terminals-with-custom-working-directories

It would probably be possible to create a macro that does this then writes ‘R’ to the terminal to open an R session there.

Someone else might know of a more straightforward way to do this.

[janxmares]

Thank you for the hint on macros. I realized that if you start the terminal while having a folder opened, it starts with the working directory set to that folder. So this provides desired functionality, although it requires specific procedure - finding a file in the folder opened in VSC and opening from there rather than directly from the file browser. Applies to Win at least.

[andycraig]

I think that’s VSCode’s assumed workflow - that you’ll open a project using ‘Open Folder...’ and then work in that folder.

Sounds like you found what you were after, so that’s good to hear!

[andycraig]

@janxmares It sounds like this issue is resolved so I'm going to close it, but if you don't consider it resolved please post and I can look into it further.

[ArnossArnossi]

Just in case someone else is also stumbling over this question in the distant future: R also provides a method for setting the current working directory from within the R terminal: setwd([dir]) and getwd().
While this doesn't switch the cwd automatically it might still be helpful.

Ref: https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/base/html/getwd.html

Please feel free to delete this comment again if I missunderstood the question or if posting long after the fact is considered inappropriate.

[Fionn-McGlacken]

@janxmares Did you ever find a good fix for this? I am experiencing the same issue. Many thanks.

[janxmares]

@Fionn-McGlacken Not really, I adopted the workflow mentioned above and I use it ever since.

[gremms1]

Edit 2: the solution proposed above (opening folder where the R file is located within vscode sets wd to current folder) is easy enough. Sorry I missed that.

Edit 1: this does not work as I thought it would. Output is always the same: /home/user

In case others are looking for an easy solution:

# Install the rprojroot package if not already installed
if (!requireNamespace("rprojroot", quietly = TRUE)) {
  install.packages("rprojroot")
}

# Load the rprojroot package
library(rprojroot)

# Set the working directory
setwd(here::here())

# Check if working directory is set correctly
getwd()

[rikrdo89]

Is there an easy way to set the current directory of the R terminal in VScode to the directory of the file I am currently working on? I know I could use setwd() but changing the path syntax between windows and R is a bit annoying. Is there any easy way to do this? I have cwd set to ${fileDirname} in VScode but it seems like R terminal does not follow those settings. Rstudio has a nice feature when right clicking the title of an open file, there is an option to set the current directory to the path of the opened file.

[rikrdo89]

Thank you for the hint on macros. I realized that if you start the terminal while having a folder opened, it starts with the working directory set to that folder. So this provides desired functionality, although it requires specific procedure - finding a file in the folder opened in VSC and opening from there rather than directly from the file browser. Applies to Win at least.

@janxmares Was there any settings you used to have the R terminal open in the directory of the opened folder? In my vscode, when click to open a new R terminal, radian opens in the project directory even if I have a folder or file opened.

[jczimm]

Not pretty, but a decent workaround is to run setwd(dirname(.vsc$rstudioapi_env$getSourceEditorContext()$path)) at the beginning of your script. (Ref: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47045368)

[HHalva]

{
"type": "R-Debugger",
"name": "Debug R Script",
"request": "launch",
"debugMode": "file",
"workingDirectory": "${fileDirname}",
"file": "${file}"
}

Works for me -- and then run Debug R Script.