launchR - simple R code execution from Python

launchR finds your R installation and provides convenience functions for running R scripts from Python, including package installation and running scripts. Currently, error output will be displayed in your Python script, but normal output may not.

Installation

To install launchR, simply call pip install launchR

Examples

import launchR
R = launchR.Interpreter()  # by default, finds R using the 
R.install_packages(["dplyr", "Rcpp"])  # raises launchR.PackageInstallError on failure
R.run("full\\path\\to\\my_script.R", "--args", "argument1", "argument2",)  # raises launchR.RExecutionError on failure
print(R.version)  # the R version found in the registry for the current interpreter

Or alternatively, if you are trying to use a specific version

# get a specific version of the interpreter, if installed
R = launchR.Interpreter(version="3.3.2")  # raises WindowsError if it can't be found
print(R.executable)  # prints the path to the found executable
print(R.user_library)  # prints the path to the user packages folder

Check for a specific package

R.check_packages(["devtools"])  # returns True if installed, False otherwise. When providing more than one package, returns True only if all are installed

Install packages only if they aren't installed already

R.install_packages(["devtools", "dplyr",], missing_only=True)  # True is the default

# Once check_packages or install_packages with missing_only==True has been run, we can just check R.packages["package_name"] for a True/False
if R.packages["devtools"] == True:
	pass  # do something here

Install from GitHub

# uses devtools::install_github to install packages from GitHub - uses the same organization/repository format for installation
packages = ["organization/repository1", "organization2/repository1"] 
R.install_github(packages)  # automatically confirms that devtools is installed and installs it if it's missing

Methods and Caveats

Currently, launchR is Windows only and finds the R install from the registry. If R wasn't installed with the setting to put R information in the registry, launchR will not find R. R can be installed for all users or as a local user. LaunchR will check for an all users installation first, and check for a local user installation as a backup if it can't find a copy installed for all users

Changelog

• 0.3.0 Added install_github to install packages from github using devtools, and check_packages for determining if packages are installed. Also added flag to install_packages named missing_only (True by default), which causes the installer to only install packages if it knows them to be missing already (can save time in some cases)
• 0.2.5 Made RExecutionError have returncode and output attributes similar to CalledProcessError
• 0.2.4 Changed user library lookup to use the registry to account for redirected documents folders
• 0.2.3 Added RExecutionError to be caught when running R fails
• 0.2.1-0.2.2 Bugfixes
• 0.2.0 Initial release