R shell integration.

Barry Rowlingson B.Rowlingson@lancaster.ac.uk
Mon, 04 Nov 2002 15:46:27 +0000


Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do this:

  ./analyse.R -gamma=2 <data.in >data.out

where analyse.R looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/R

gamma <- getopt("gamma")
mydata <- scan(...)

etc?  In other words, be able to write executable R scripts?

  Current problems with this are:

* linux will only execute binaries from #! scripts, so a C-code wrapper 
is needed

* R can only take commands from standard input, so I cant see how to get 
it to read commands _and_ data from standard input. Could a new option 
be added to read commands from a file given on the command line?

* nobody has written a 'getopt' function to format the results of the 
commandArgs() function :)

  - I've already written a (four-line) C wrapper to do the first part, 
and it is an interesting feeling to run R with "./runme.R", but the 
second problem is slightly trickier.

  Is this worth putting any effort into, or did this weekend's fireworks 
burn my brain too much?

Barry


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