I have two different versions of R installed, one which is up to date and which I use for all my regular R coding (needs to be up to date so that I can use various updated and new packages) and one which I use to access OLAP cubes (needs to be the R Client from Microsoft, because this is the only one which supports the olapR package, and which currently uses R version 3.4.3).
Since, in theory, I only have to access the OLAP cube once a month, I "outsourced" this task to a different RStudio project, in which I download and save the required data for all other projects. Hence, all other projects never require the olapR package to be installed and can and will be run in the up to date R version.
Now, ideally I would like to link my R version to my projects, so that I do not have to change my global R version and restart RStudio every time I access the OLAP cube or work on this data retrieval project (and then switch it back). However, I could not find any options in RStudio to achieve this result.
There are a few threads out there describing the same problem, but with no satisfactory answer in my opinion:
https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/200657296-Link-Project-and-R-Version
Rstudio project using different version of R
I also tried looking for a different package than olapR but with similar functionality, but could not find anything except X4R, which seems outdated and does not work for me (https://github.com/overcoil/X4R). Sadly, I am also unable to directly access the databases which the OLAP cube uses for its results, so I cannot go "around" it.
I am happy for any help or suggestions you can offer, whether it is a general workaround to link a project to a specific R version or the (less helpful for the community) solution of accessing the OLAP cube in a different way.
Thanks in advance!
Using the answer from MrGumble I created a .bat file that will execute my .R file using the desired R installation. Even though it is not the answer I thought I would get, I think it is an even better solution to the problem.
For all facing a similar issue, here is the .bat file (never created one before, so also had to google how to do it and I guess some might be in the same position):
#echo off
title Getting data for further processing in R
echo Retrieving OLAP data
echo.
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\R Client\R_SERVER\bin\Rscript.exe" "C:\Users\me\Documents\Projects\!Data\script.R"
echo.
echo Saved data
echo.
pause
Thanks again to MrGumble for his help.
Skip RStudio.
RStudio is really just an editor (albeit powerful and useful) editor, which starts an R console for you (and the surrounding PATH variables, library locations, etc.).
If your monthly task only requires you to run the R-script (or a bit of interactive work), you can simply execute your preferred version of R from the command line and have it run your R script. E.g.
C:\Users\me>"C:\Program Files (x64)\Microsoft R\bin\Rscript" myscript.R
You might have to define some PATH variables so that the older R doesn't look for packages in the newer R's libraries, but that depends entirely on your current setup.
I use R, Rstudio and Rcpp and I spent over a week debugging some code, that was just giving errors and warnings in unexpected places, in some cases with direct sample code from online or package documentation.
I often restart the R session or Rstudio if there are obvious problems and they usually go away.
But this morning it was really bad to the point were basic R commands would fail and restarting R did nothing. I closed all the Rstudio sessions and restarted the machine for good measure, (which was unnecessary).
When it came back and I re-loaded the sessions everything seems to be working.
Even the some rcpp code I was working on for weeks with outside packages will now compile and run where it gave gibberish errors before.
I have known for a while that R needs to be restarted once in a while, but I know it when basic functions don't run, how can I know earlier.
I am looking for a good general resource or function that can tell me I need to restart because something is not running right. I would be nice if I can also know what to restart.
Whether the R session, the GUI such as Rstudio, all sessions and GUIs or a full machine restart.
For as long as I have been dabbling with or actually using R (ie more than two decades), it has always been recommended to start a clean and fresh session.
Which is why I prefer to work on command-line for tests. When you invoke R, or Rscript, or, in my case, r (from littler) you know you get a fresh session free of possible side-effects. By keeping these tests to the command-line, my main sessions (often multiple instances inside Emacs via ESS, possibly multiple RStudio sessions too) are less affected.
Even RStudio defaults to 'install and restart' when you rebuild a package.
(I will note that a certain development package implies you could cleanly unload a package. That has been debated at length, and I think by now even its authors qualify that claim. I don't really know or case as I don't use it, having had established workflows before it appeared.)
And to add: You almost never need to restart the computer. But a fresh clean process is a something to use often. Your computer can create millions of those for you.
I usually open the R console all day long, but sometimes I need to clean my history and my workspace's background so that I can test functions or load new data.
I'm wondering whether there is an easier way to use a command line in .Rprofile so that I can refresh the R console without quitting or rebooting my current session.
What I have usually done for this is to q() without saving and then start R again and clean the History. I think somebody here might be able to give me some better suggestions.
Thanks in advance.
For what concerns history, in UNIX-like systems (mine is Debian) this command refreshes it
loadhistory("")
However, as said in comments, loadhistory seems to be platform-dependent.
Check your ?loadhistory if present on your platform. Mine says:
There are several history mechanisms available for the different
R consoles, which work in similar but not identical ways. There
are separate versions of this help file for Unix and Windows.
The functions described here work on Unix-alikes under the
readline command-line interface but may not otherwise (for
example, in batch use or in an embedded application)
Old versions of the vim-r-plugin offered an option for choosing whether all vim/gvim instances used their own R processes (and screen sessions) or a single shared process (using the vimrplugin_single_r variable). See section 5.2 of the documentation of version 101217.
The current version of the plugin use separate R processes by default and despite my best efforts I am at a loss on how to change it back to a single process. Does anybody know how?
Edit
The best solution I have found is to use version 0.9.9.1, which was the last version including this option.
I apologize if this has already been asked a different way but I couldn't find anything getting at what I wanted.
I am really getting into R from other packages (SPSS). As I learn about what truly can be done, I realize that there are additional "tools" that I need. This gets me to my question.
What setup do you have for developing R code? I can't see myself actually developing r packages anywhere in the near future, but I do see myself wanting to manage my r projects effeciently, as well as create reports and presentations in LaTeX.
For context, I develop my R code in Eclipse for Windows, but I have had a real hard time successfully setting up Latex/Sweave and Github plugins.
Lastly, do you develop code using Windows or something else?
Many thanks in advance for any insight you can lend.
Emacs has everything I commonly need:
ESS (for R),
AucTeX (for Latex),
similarly rich 'modes' for other languages I use (C++, make, shell, ...),
plus a lot of other modes you get quite used to as e.g. dired for directory/file browsing or org-mode as planner/to-do list,
the SVN integration is very good too
and there are probably a number of tools within Emacs I am now forgetting.
Works in text mode as well as graphical mode, and works essentially the same (incl ESS and AucTeX) on several operating systems (Linux mostly and Windows when I must). On Debian/Ubuntu all this is prepackaged and tends to work out of the box as well. For both Windows and OS X, Vincent Goulet has package very handy bundles, see here.
The 'daemon mode' is outstanding too -- I keep the same main Emacs session running and just connect and re-connect to it even when accessing the machine (via ssh or directly) from different computers.
Also see the EmacsWiki for more tips around Emacs.
Back to Emacs and R in particular. The R FAQ says it pretty well:
6.1 Is there Emacs support for R?
6.2 Should I run R from within Emacs?
and I like the affirmative and resounding answer to the second question: "Yes, definitely". I fully concur.
I'll second the suggestion that Emacs compliments R nicely, but let me share what the "killer feature" is for me.
Using Org-mode with Org-babel, I can write whole reports with inline graphs produced from R in raster and vector format which compiles seamlessly into a PDF report via latex. I can also view the graphs while editing, similar to a WYSIWYG editor.
I just wrapped up a major report with over 70 inline graphs with little effort, no editing external files, no issues maintaining naming between figures in my report and external files, or forgetting to recompile the latest version of a figure. Org & Babel does it all.
Org-mode:
http://orgmode.org/
Org-Babel:
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/index.php
Example of inline R with Babel and PDF output, see the first example in multiple formats:
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-R.php
Enjoy!
This is probably more relevant for package development, but it is also worth mentioning the roxygen R package that allows in-source documentation of your code. Note that even though you can't see yourself developing R packages anywhere in the near future, a package can be a very handy way of grouping related functions you develop and maintain, consistently documenting the code and keeping track of updates, even if you do not plan to distribute it.
I use a mac, and my most important tools are:
the command line, for running R
git, for keeping track of changes
github for publishing my code, bug tracking and collaboration
textmate for writing R code
Has anyone tried RStudio? It's the shiny new editor for R.
I use windows... (don't say it).
I like Notepad++ and NPPtoR. Makes it pretty easy to send things back and forth.
I use Eclipse on Windows and Linux. I compile LaTeX code (with Sweave) on Linux and I haven't bothered yet to set up the whole process in Eclipse. I need to pdflatex and bibtex files several times anyway, so I just have a terminal window with the specific string of commands handy. I tried ESS and Eclipse and they're very similar in functionality (and in my opinion the best two editors out there).
I use Eclipse / StatEt on Windows, and it Rocks !. For LaTex/Sweave I use MikTex which works well for me. For help setting things up check out this document and this post.
Other Tools you may find useful include;
If you want to build R Packages on
Windows, then get the RTools
For
Creating Documents, you may want to
check out odfWeave,
LibreOffice (was OpenOffice) and
the MSOffice ODF plugin
I have also
dabbled with Git but also didn't get
very far on Windows, but that was a
while ago.
For Presentations in LaTex
I recomend Beamer
I use Eclipse for both R and Latex while working on research papers. The plugins for both are very mature now. The nice thing is that you don't have to switch application while writing papers. I used different combination before but I found this to be the best.
I just got home from our local R User meeting (find one near you here) and of the 20 or so people there, all of us used a different program or tool to write R code in. I think that goes to show the diversity of the tools used to write and edit R code is just as diverse as the R community itself.