simpler

simpler (“simple R”) is a lightweight wrapper that calls R (really Rscript) from within ruby. It is designed to favor R in syntax.

Why use this rather than rsruby?

You should probably be using rsruby–it’s a fantastic gem. However, if you want to code using more of an R code sytax (e.g., to cut and paste R code and have it just work), or if you can’t get rsruby working, this gem may be useful to you.

Examples

FYI - the API is still unstable.

Basic execution (Raw input, raw output)

require 'simpler'
simpler = Simpler.new
simpler.run!("mean(c(1,2,3))") # -> "[1] 2\n"  (a Simpler::Reply object)

Using ruby variables (calculating correlation coefficient):

xv = [1,2,7]
yv = [3,4,8]
reply = simpler.with(xv,yv) {|x,y|  "cor(#{x},#{y})"  }.run!   # -> "[1] 0.9994238\n"

Show a plot

“Rscript” writes plotting commands that would normally go to an X window to “Rplots.pdf”. show! merely executes your code and opens Rplots.pdf with @pdf_viewer. It’s low tech, but it works.

simpler.pdf_viewer = "acroread"
simpler.with(xv,yv) {|x,y|  "plot(#{x}, #{y})"  }.show!

Using DataFrames

hash = {
  :one => [1,2,6,7],
  :two => [3,4,2,9],
  :three => [3,1,1,7],
}

df = Simpler::DataFrame.new(hash)
simpler.with(df) {|d|  "plot(#{d})" }.show!

DataFrame also supports named rows and specifying directly column names.

Credit

Simpler is loosely inspired by the original gnuplot and, of course, the excellent rsruby.

Casting

All replies are of class Simpler::Reply, so casting can be done in a way that works for you by defining your own methods.