R help - Dec 2004 - Getting R to emit an image file as a pipe or Base64 stream: Mac OSX 10.3 - R 2.0.1

Hi All,

Anybody know how to make R emit base64 encoded text in some way that perl
can grab it, instead of planting a file on your harddrive when calling
JPEG or PNG?
I've managed to get these scripts to work and put a file on the harddisk

#!/usr/bin/perl -Wall
# by jin kee. a simple script to demonstrate
# the needed steps to get R to emit a jpeg.

use strict;

my($callR, $callRold);

# need to start X if is isn't already started.
`open /Applications/Utilities/X11.app`;


#need to get let the R program know where to look
#for the display immediately before calling
#the R executible.
$callR =<<MARKER;
DISPLAY=:0.0; export DISPLAY;
/usr/bin/R --vanilla <plotscript.R;
MARKER

system($callR);

# end script

#!/usr/bin/R
peg("~/Desktop/test.jpg");
plot(rnorm(100));
dev.off();
q(save = "no");


My sysadmin says that the apache user can't write to the disk due to
security policy, so he wants to know if I can emit the jpeg as a base64
stream and embedd it into the dynamically generated tag using a DATA tag
to inline the image.

http://www.elf.org/essay/inline-image.html

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2397.html

i've tried searching the R-project.org site and help.search() and no luck.

Yours
Jin

If you want to call R from perl, why don't you do a simple system call like:

$callR="/usr/loca/bin/R CMD BATCH plotscript.R";
system ($callR);

It is not necessary to start X display if anything can be done in background




On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 12:07:24 +1100 (EST)
"Thuan-Jin Kee" <kee at wehi.EDU.AU> wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Anybody know how to make R emit base64 encoded text in some way that perl
> can grab it, instead of planting a file on your harddrive when calling
> JPEG or PNG?
> I've managed to get these scripts to work and put a file on the
harddisk
> 
> #!/usr/bin/perl -Wall
> # by jin kee. a simple script to demonstrate
> # the needed steps to get R to emit a jpeg.
> 
> use strict;
> 
> my($callR, $callRold);
> 
> # need to start X if is isn't already started.
> `open /Applications/Utilities/X11.app`;
> 
> 
> #need to get let the R program know where to look
> #for the display immediately before calling
> #the R executible.
> $callR =<<MARKER;
> DISPLAY=:0.0; export DISPLAY;
> /usr/bin/R --vanilla <plotscript.R;
> MARKER
> 
> system($callR);
> 
> # end script
> 
> #!/usr/bin/R
> peg("~/Desktop/test.jpg");
> plot(rnorm(100));
> dev.off();
> q(save = "no");
> 
> 
> My sysadmin says that the apache user can't write to the disk due to
> security policy, so he wants to know if I can emit the jpeg as a base64
> stream and embedd it into the dynamically generated tag using a DATA tag
> to inline the image.
> 
> http://www.elf.org/essay/inline-image.html
> 
> http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2397.html
> 
> i've tried searching the R-project.org site and help.search() and no
luck.
> 
> Yours
> Jin
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide!
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html

-- 

--
Yuandan Zhang, PhD

Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit
The University of New England
Armidale, NSW, Australia, 2351

E-mail:   yzhang4 at metz.une.edu.au
Phone:    (61) 02 6773 3786
Fax:      (61) 02 6773 3266
http://agbu.une.edu.au
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  AGBU is a joint venture of NSW Primary Industries 
  and The University of New England to undertake 
  genetic R&D for Australia's Livestock Industries           
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