On May 3, 2013, at 11:21 AM, Jony Hudson wrote: > Hi All, > > thanks for the replies. Very helpful to know that it will run with just base. > Looks like the best bet, at least to get started, is to not use the usual > build-process, but to come up with a simple build-script for just the core. > Ultimately, the build script has to be different anyway, as compiling the > Fortran code to JS requires a few more steps than the native compile. > > For a bit of context, the reason I'm toying with this is I've been > experimenting recently with analysis-in-the-browser. The kernel of the idea > is that if you could do real analysis, without installing anything, and share > it on the web then it would be a Good Thing, and could make it easier to > engage people with data. I've got a proof-of-concept version running here > http://www.monkeycruncher.org that let's you write javascript analysis code > in notebook-style documents. It's neat, but it's a bit hamstrung by the lack > of javascript libraries to actually do any useful analysis! If you could have > R running in there though, that would be a much better proposition ... >
It seems that you want something not unlike RCloud http://stats.research.att.com/RCloud/ It uses WebSockets to talk to R either locally or on a server. The nice thing about using WS is that you can leverage large clusters - are not tied to the local machine. Also it allows you to get the benefits of both worlds: R for computation + static graphics while allowing you do to cool interactive graphics in JavaScript. RCloud is something like iPython notebook but based on R with extra interactive graphics. But this is getting OT ;). Cheers, Simon > I'll let you know if I make any progress! > > > Jony > > > -- > Centre for Cold Matter, The Blackett Laboratory, > Imperial College London, London SW7 2BW > T: +44 (0)207 5947741 > http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/jony.hudson > http://www.imperial.ac.uk/ccm/research/edm > http://www.monkeycruncher.org > http://j-star.org/ > -- > > On 3 May 2013, at 01:31, Simon Urbanek <simon.urba...@r-project.org> wrote: > >> On May 2, 2013, at 6:18 PM, Gabriel Becker wrote: >> >>> Jony, >>> >>> I'm currently writing up the paper for something with a similar result but >>> very different implementation. The RBrowserPlugin package/browser plugin >>> (joint with my advisor Duncan Temple Lang) embeds R within the web browser >>> as an NPAPI plugin. >>> >>> This approach allows full bi-directional communication between R and the >>> javascript engine (including direct function calling and references to >>> native objects in both directions) using a user's existing local R >>> installation (including packages). >>> >> >> Minor detail: it requires you to have R *and* a special plugin which makes >> it pretty much non-deployable. It's completely unrelated to what Jony is >> proposing - which doesn't require any dependencies and is actually pretty >> cool and would be useful if feasible. FWIW: There are many ways to run R >> from a browser that already exist - without the need for plugins or other >> client-side hacks - that's the beauty of modern browsers :). >> >> >> To get this back on the actual topic: I have been toying with >> cross-compiling R when I was porting it on the iPhone and it's possible, >> however, you can't use the build process as-is. It does build core R >> properly, but the problem is that you need to bootstrap R to build any >> packages. I worked around the problem at the time by building packages on >> another platform and re-using those files (things like lazy-loaded DBs, >> compiled RD files etc.). >> >> I can imagine that you'll need some equivalent to dynamic linking, but >> conceptually it's nothing else but calling functions, so I think you should >> be able to compile each package separately and just replace the dynload code >> by code that loads another JavaScript. The nice thing is that packages will >> simply be just another JS libraries. That's all in theory, I didn't actually >> try that part. I suspect you'll have a lot of work, e.g. you'll need to map >> all the I/O operations that load compiled/stored R code, documentation, data >> from somewhere etc. Good luck! >> If all fails, you can always compile R for JS/Linux ;). >> >> Cheers, >> Simon >> >> >> >>> Devel source at https://github.com/gmbecker/RFirefox, release, (hopefully) >>> officially cross-platform version to coincide with the paper going off for >>> review. >>> >>> I had toyed with the idea of the emscripten approach, but I think putting R >>> in the browser once is enough for me at the moment so I will happily keep >>> an eye on your project instead of attacking that myself :). >>> >>> As for your actual question I can't really say, other than that I suspect >>> you will not be able to dispense with base and methods, but that I would >>> conjecture that stats is "optional". >>> >>> ~G >>> >>> >>> On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 9:12 AM, Jony Hudson >>> <jony.hud...@imperial.ac.uk>wrote: >>> >>>> Hi, >>>> >>>> I'm trying to cross-compile R to javascript so that it can run in a >>>> web-browser. Take as long as you need to stop laughing. So, as I was saying >>>> - I want to try and get a build of R running in the browser. [If you're not >>>> familiar with it already, you might enjoy looking at emscripten.org. It's >>>> a remarkably capable tool for translating LLVM bitcode to javascript. Check >>>> out some of the demos!] >>>> >>>> I'm trying to start out with the most minimal build of R possible. I can >>>> turn off various options in the configure script, but I'm wondering about >>>> the bundled R packages (base, stats etc). I'm guessing that the native code >>>> portions of these packages are dynamically loaded at runtime, which will >>>> probably need patching. To start off, I'd like to not build these packages >>>> if possible. >>>> >>>> So, is there a way to configure which packages in the library get built or >>>> is it just a case of editing the makefile? And is there a minimal set of >>>> them that would still allow R to run (not be useful - that can come later - >>>> just run)? >>>> >>>> Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide :-) >>>> >>>> >>>> Jony >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Centre for Cold Matter, The Blackett Laboratory, >>>> Imperial College London, London SW7 2BW >>>> T: +44 (0)207 5947741 >>>> http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/jony.hudson >>>> http://www.imperial.ac.uk/ccm/research/edm >>>> http://www.monkeycruncher.org >>>> http://j-star.org/ >>>> -- >>>> >>>> ______________________________________________ >>>> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Gabriel Becker >>> Graduate Student >>> Statistics Department >>> University of California, Davis >>> >>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >>> >>> ______________________________________________ >>> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel >>> >>> >> > > ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
