[Bioc-devel] HTTP GET and POST with RCurl | RMySQL

[Steffen Durinck]

Hi,

I want to rewrite a package that currently uses MySQL queries with the 
use of a webservice that does these queries over HTTP, and need simple 
HTTP POST and HTTP GET methods. 
RCurl has postForm and getURL and does the job. However one of the 
reasons to use a webservice over providing MySQL queries was that I want 
to make the package as userfriendly to install as possible, on all 
platforms.  With MySQL  there is the problem that for Windows, the 
RMySQL package is not maintained on CRAN and during installation users 
have to intervene to get a proper installation.  RCurl is also not 
maintained by CRAN but by omegahat and requires libcurl to be installed.

here my questions:

- Do users find RCurl hard to install and is it easier to install than 
RMySQL on all platforms.

- Will a package that depends on RCurl be build on the bioconductor 
repository for all platforms? (With RMySQL my package is not being build 
on Windows as RMySQL is not installed)

- I've also tried the httpRequest package available from CRAN, but in my 
hands R crashes on both Windows and Linux  when trying  to use the 
webservice and it is very slow. Have others experienced the same?

- Are there any other options to consider to have an HTTP GET and POST 
method in R?

Thanks,
Steffen

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