> I was wondering
> what is the difference between rpy and RSPython.
The main difference is that rpy does one-way communication, is simpler
than RSPython, than is easier to use.
> So I have a question for you - why rpy instead of RSPython? Have you
> tried both, and can you give a comparison of pros and cons?
I am not an expert on RSPython. I tried RSPython and rpy and chose rpy
for the following reasons:
1. rpy is in active maintenance. As you can see from rpy webpage, rpy
supports all versions of R till 2.2.1, python 2.4 and provides binary
installers like rpy-0.4.6-R-2.0.0-to-2.2.1-xxxx.xxx . On the contrary,
a windows installer for RSPython is for R-1.4.0, python 2.2.0.
2. RSPython uses mainly its RS.call function. This is troublesome and
is the main reason why I use rpy. For example,
in RSPython:
RS.call('rnorn', 10)
in rpy:
r.rnorm(10)
RSPython does provide similar usage now (maybe after I became a rpy user) but
RSPython:
from RS import R
R.rnorm(10) # works
R.dev.off() # does not work
Rpy solves this problem by (and the mechanism is clearly described in
the rpy manual):
from rpy import *
r.rnorm(10)
r.dev_off()
rpy also provides
r('''arbitrary R piece of code''')
which is immensely useful to run big trunk of R code.
rpy also claims that the performance of rpy is better but I have no
comparison data here.
> there is nothing wrong with having a bias,
> but the goals listed imply that it might be "better" in those areas...
> which may or may not be true.
I agree.
> (To answer one question you might have, I was trying to invoke Python
> code from inside R and was doing it the opposite direction from you).
Exactly. We are doing different things so while you have to use
RSPython, I have a choice between RSPython and rpy. In my case, all
the real computations are done in C/C++, wrapped by Python. I could
have wrapped my C/C++ code in R but R is not good at wrapping C++
class hierarchy because of the different OOP mechanisms. When I need
the statistical analysis and plotting capacity of R, I use rpy.
As a matter of fact, since Python is a powerful programming language
than can handle string, text file etc better than R, I usually prepare
my data in python and pass them to R using rpy.
Cheers,
Bo
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