I'm designing an R based application for my boss. It's not much, but it might save him some time. What it will be doing is reading data from an MS-SQL database and creating a number of graphs. At present, he must log into one server to run a vendor application to display the data in a grid. He then cuts this data and pastes it into an Excel spreadsheet. He then generates some graphs in Excel. Which he then cuts and pastes into a Power Point presentation. Which is the end result for distribution to others up the food chain.
What I would like to do is read the MS-SQL data base using RODBC and create the graphs using ggplot2 instead of using Excel. I may end up being told to create an Excel file as well. My real question is organizing the R programs to do this. Basically what I was thinking of was a "master" program. It does the ODBC work and fetches the data into one, or more, data.frames. I was then thinking that it would be better to have separate source files for each graph produced. I would use the source() function in the "master" R program to load & execute each one in order. Is this a decent origination? Or would it be better for each "create a graph" R file to really just define a unique function which the "master" program would then invoke? I guess this latter would be a good way to keep the workspace "clean" since all the variables in the functinon would "go away" when the function ended. I guess what I'm asking is how others organize the R applications. Oh, I plan for this to be run by my boss by double clicking on the "master" R source file, which I will associate with the Rscript program in Windows. Yes, this is Windows based <sigh/>. Appreciate your thoughts. Especially if I'm really off track. -- There is nothing more pleasant than traveling and meeting new people! Genghis Khan Maranatha! <>< John McKown ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
