[R-SIG-Mac] What are these other 'R' processes?

[Carl Witthoft]

Mystery solved - thanks for reminding me about PPID!
Turns out that all the "other" R processes derive from BBedit, which is 
understandable since I have some BBedit plugins to allow executing R 
from that editor.

regards,
Carl


On 11/27/24 7:07 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
> Carl,
> 
> R itself is just a single process. However, there are plenty of ways to have multiple R processes running on your system.
> 
> The "parallel" package provides various ways in which you can start more parallel R processes for parallel computing. Those will typically appear without a logo.  Even if you didn’t use it directly, some packages you used may have done so without telling you. If they don’t clean up after themselves properly, that may leave those stray processes around (but typically only until you close your R session).
> 
> The other way to get processes without a logo is to start them from the command line. They are not necessarily related - one way to find they are is to use let’s say "ps xl" and look at the parent process ID (PPID) -  if the PPID is the same as another R’s PID then the latter is the parent of the former and likely spawned it. If not, then it has been started separately.
> 
> R itself will start additional R processes in some situations: the most common is for package installation since that involves calling R CMD INSTALL which means creating yet another R process.
> 
> As a side note: if you run R from the console (Terminal) then it will be without an icond until you use R graphics (Quartz) at which point R registers itself as an application so it can show the Quartz window, thus macOS will then show it with an icon (typically of the parent program so, e.g. Terminal).
> 
> Cheers,
> Simon
> 
> 
> 
>> On 28 Nov 2024, at 12:00, Carl Witthoft <carl using witthoft.com> wrote:
>>
>> "I Never Looked"  category!  I was checking the Activity Monitor and noticed that, in addition to a process called "R" which displays the R logo , I have six other processes called "R" with just a plain capital "R" .
>> These others all have newer PIDs than the "main" R.  One of them appears to be idling with a bit of CPU usage while all others, including the 'main' one, are at zero CPU (I'm using Rgui.app and at the moment not running any command).
>>
>> Do these other processes matter? Are they leftovers?
>>
>> thanks
>> Carl
>> -- 
>> Carl Witthoft
>> personal: carl using witthoft.com
>> The Witthoft Group, Consulting
>> https://witthoftgroup.weebly.com/
>>
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> 

-- 
Carl Witthoft
personal: carl using witthoft.com
The Witthoft Group, Consulting
https://witthoftgroup.weebly.com/