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7

Is there a possibility to use R in a webinterface without the need to install it?

I have only one small script which I like to run but I just want to give it a shot without a long installation procedure.

Thank you.

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A "long installation procedure"? Only if you build from source. There are binaries for most popular OS distributions and it takes < 5 minutes to download and install them. – Joshua Ulrich Apr 18 '11 at 20:00
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@Joshua: You are right - but "long" is relative, esp. when you compare it to just copy&paste into a webinterface. – vonjd Apr 18 '11 at 20:18
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@vonjd: But you could have downloaded, installed, and run your script in less time than it took to write your question and wait for an answer. ;-) – Joshua Ulrich Apr 18 '11 at 20:25
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@Joshua Good point. But in some work environments it can take a lot of effort just to get the permission to install any executable on a machine. And on Windows systems, most installations, even after a subsequent uninstall, litter the machine with detritus that accumulates over time and helps bog everything down, so if you aren't sure you're going to use some software there's incentive not to install it. – whuber♦ Apr 18 '11 at 20:40
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You can put an entire Windows installation of R (and RStudio for ease of use) on a flash drive. Just copy the R folder. Then you can take it with you. – kmm Apr 19 '11 at 1:48
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5 Answers

up vote 16 down vote accepted

Yes, there are some Rweb interface, like this one.

Note: Installation of the R software is pretty straightforward and quick, on any platform.

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+1: Wow, it worked right away! Thank you! – vonjd Apr 18 '11 at 19:42
@vonjd I just checked: they are running R version 2.11.1. (Try R.version() at the command prompt.) – chl♦ Apr 18 '11 at 19:45
up vote 5 down vote

Sage also has R included with a Python interface. The Sage system is available as installable, but also online.

Example:

r.data("faithful")
r.lm("eruptions ~ waiting", data=r.faithful)

Output:

Call:
lm(formula = sage2, data = sage0)

Coefficients:
(Intercept)      waiting  
   -1.87402      0.07563
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I tried to run an r script in a Sage webinterface but it didn't work - it said that there was an error creating a png (no X.11 available or sth.) – vonjd Apr 19 '11 at 7:46
This python interface is freakin hilarious. Do you have any clue how it built? I mean I could make use of a much much simpler system but need to host on my own. – hans0l0 Oct 10 '12 at 19:31
up vote 5 down vote

Also, if you want to provide a solution to other users, you can set up a webserver with RApache.

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And now there's Rack. – chl♦ Apr 19 '11 at 9:58
@chl: cool, thanks for the link! – nico Apr 19 '11 at 10:03
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@chl And now, it is called Rook (-; – mbq♦ Nov 25 '11 at 22:33
up vote 2 down vote

Have a look at RStudio This has a desktop and web version. I have used the desktop version and it is pretty cool.

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The link to download the R web interface installer can be found at: rstudio.org/download – Suminda Dharmasena Nov 25 '11 at 20:47
up vote 2 down vote

Some of the pastebin services will allow you to enter R code. For example, ideone. Here is a very silly hello world in R. I believe ideone limits you to 15 seconds compute time per run, and no fancy IDE, despite the name.

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(+1) Nice finding! – chl♦ Nov 26 '11 at 10:19

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