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

[Vincent Carey 525-2265]

> 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:

Here are my 2c worth:

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

I found RMySQL a bit difficult to install because if you have MySQL
installed it may conflict with the version required by the package;
on windows I think the package image does come with a mysql infrastructure.

RCurl i had fewer problems with but I am not sure I ever built it
on windows.

Omegahat does point to binaries for R 2.1.0 for both RCurl and SSOAP
(see below)

>
> - 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)

KEGGSOAP depends on RCurl and I see that bioc 1.7 does not
distribute a windows image. ???  This suggests that windows may
not fly.

>
> - 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?

haven't tried

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

your question here might best be directed to r-devel.