[R] Excel-to-R Interface

[Prof Brian D Ripley]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Hengyi Xue wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have some questions about Excel-to-R interface and I hope somebody
can help me. Is it possible to call functions in a self-defined package
from Excel using the Excel-to-R interface? We created the package
successfully and can run all the functions inside R. But when we tried
to run them from Excel, we kept running into problems. It seems
we can not run anything that is not in the base package.
I know that the DCOM server is communicating with R compiled as DLL.
Is it possible to compile our self defined package into DLL?

Is this about Erich Neuwirth's RServer Excel add-in on Windows?
It's not very obvious, and on CRAN that is called an R-Excel Interface.
With addons to R it is often most effective to ask the author direct.

Let me pick up on the last point.  The DCOM server communicates with R,
period.  The base package is not in the DLL, and it is exactly the same R
as used by the GUI and terminal front-ends.  So if you send "library(foo)"
via the DCOM execute method, it works just as if you typed it at the
command line.  It makes no sense (to me) to `compile our self defined
package into DLL': packages are mainly interpreted code.

The extras in the DCOM interface are means to transfer simple R objects to
and fro.  As far as I recall you have access to the full DCOM interface
from RServer via writing VBA.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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