[R-sig-DB] Postgresql Options for Mac OS X

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Mon, 11 May 2009, Neil Tiffin wrote:

> In trying to figure out how the best way to access a postgresql database from 
> R on Mac OS X. Currently my database has 88 million rows (9 GB) and is 
> growing so I am looking for a stable interface.  The following options seem 
> to be available:
>
> 1. RdbiPgSQL_1.18.1
> 2. RPostgreSQL_0.1-4
> 3. TSPostgreSQL_2009.3-2

You have omitted RODBC, since PostgreSQL has a mature ODBC driver.

3) Is a special-purpose layer over 2).

> These packages seemed to be obsolete and no longer supported/recommended:
>
> 4. RPgSQL 1.0
> 5. Rdbi 0.1.2
>
> Results
> ======
> #1 relies on #5 and has an older connection syntax.
> #2 appears relatively new and has not reached 1.0 status yet.  For someone 
> used to libpq the interface is very familiar.
> #3 relies on #2 and not sure what it adds as the docs did not install 
> correctly, nor are they accessible from CRAN.
> All 3 packages compiled and installed on Mac OS X even though #2 and #3 
> reported failures in CRAN.

Have you looked at the failures?  RPostgreSQL failed to install 
because the build machine does not have PostgreSQL installed.

> Have not tried to actually use them yet.
>
> Conclusion
> =========
> Use #2 even though it does not seem very mature.
>
> Questions
> ========
> Is this a good summary of the state of accessing postgresql from R or have I 
> missed something?

The second.

> Is RPostgreSQL being used anyplace and is it stable?
>
> Neil
> Chicago
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley using stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
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