[Rd] R plot display problem under windows when using python rpy module.

[Hin-Tak Leung]

Hi,
(off topic slightly, and a slight flame-bait...).
I don't have an answer or clue to your question, but I have played with
PSPython briefly and it did work somewhat for me (and I have not heard 
of rpy until reading this through r-devel), and I was wondering
what is the difference between rpy and RSPython. According to the rpy page:
=============
  This code is inspired by RSPython from the Omegahat project. The main 
goals of RPy are:

     * to have a very robust interface for using R from Python
     * the interface should be as transparent and easy to use as possible
     * it should be usable for real scientific and statistical computations
=============

But "a very robust interface" is self-proclaimed and unsubstantiated; 
"transparent", "easy to use", "usable for real scientific..." are 
subjective, so what it amounts to is a case of "not-invented-here" 
symptom (i.e. wheels...). This might be flame-bait... but since I
have used PSPython very very briefly and I don't think it suffers
from the above 3 (and even if it does, it is open-source, one can
always add/modify/patch without starting new), I do wonder...

So I have a question for you - why rpy instead of RSPython? Have you 
tried both, and can you give a comparison of pros and cons?

In fact, the most obvious superficial difference I can see is that 
RSPython is written by an R-biased person (it uses "R CMD build"), where
as rpy is written by a Python-biased person (it builds with
"python setup.py ...")... there is nothing wrong with having a bias,
but the goals listed imply that it might be "better" in those areas... 
which may or may not be true.

(To answer one question you might have, I was trying to invoke Python 
code from inside R and was doing it the opposite direction from you).

HTL

Bo Peng wrote:
> Dear list,
> 
> Rpy is a python module that provides python interface to R. The
> following simple commands
> 
> 
>>>>from rpy import *
>>>>r.plot(0)
> 
> 
> is supposed to create a window that displays the result of plot(0).
> 
> However, we observe that
> 1. Under *nix, rpy+R+python  work as expected
> 2. Under windows, python + pythonWin32 (a python GUI provided by the
> pywin32 module), work as expected
> 3. Under windows, if we run the commands from command line or IDLE (a
> simple python IDE), a window will be created, but the figure will not
> be drawn. Then, if we run r.plot(2), the result of plot(0) will be
> drawn. plot(2) will be displayed when the next drawing command is
> executed.
> 
> Since R works well in most cases, I do not think this is a R problem.
> However, can anyone tell me what *might* block the figures from being
> displayed? In other word, what might PythonWin have provided to enable
> correct rendering of the figures? If I have to trace to the sources,
> what portion of the R code should I have a look at? (It is good that
> python/R/rpy are all open source).
> 
> Many thanks in advance.
> Bo
> 
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