I am interested in running R commands asynchronously.
My first choice is in the same R session that I am currently in.
Here, the goal would be to run something like
RunAsynchSameSession(myfunction(), "outputname.rda")
Once RunAsynchSameSession had started myfunction(),
RunAsynchSameSession would complete immediately. myfunction would
keep going. It is OK if execution of the myfunction() command
prevents new input to R until it has completed. The important feature
is that RunAsynchSameSession must tell the progam that called it that
it was done.
Second choice is to start an independent process, BATCH or something
similar, and save the resulting data objects in an .rda file.
RunAsynchBatch("myfile.r", "outputname.rda")
The RunAsynchBatch would start a batch process and complete
immediately after starting the batch file. The batch file would run
independently until it was completed. While I know how to do this,
for example with system(wait=FALSE), I would appreciate seeing a
worked collection of statements, including getting outputname.rda back
to the original R session. I am working on Windows.
Rich
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
Tk windows run asynchronous to the rest of R, so you could write a small
function that lets you type the command into a Tk window and runs it while you
continue to work in the main R, then the window could signal you when the
function finishes.
-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
On Behalf Of Richard M. Heiberger
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 3:30 PM
To: r-help
Subject: [R] running R commands asynchronously
I am interested in running R commands asynchronously.
My first choice is in the same R session that I am currently in.
Here, the goal would be to run something like
RunAsynchSameSession(myfunction(), "outputname.rda")
Once RunAsynchSameSession had started myfunction(),
RunAsynchSameSession would complete immediately. myfunction would
keep going. It is OK if execution of the myfunction() command
prevents new input to R until it has completed. The important feature
is that RunAsynchSameSession must tell the progam that called it that
it was done.
Second choice is to start an independent process, BATCH or something
similar, and save the resulting data objects in an .rda file.
RunAsynchBatch("myfile.r", "outputname.rda")
The RunAsynchBatch would start a batch process and complete
immediately after starting the batch file. The batch file would run
independently until it was completed. While I know how to do this,
for example with system(wait=FALSE), I would appreciate seeing a
worked collection of statements, including getting outputname.rda back
to the original R session. I am working on Windows.
Rich
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
On Fri, 10 Jun 2011, Greg Snow wrote:> Tk windows run asynchronous to the rest of R, so you could write a > small function that lets you type the command into a Tk window and > runs it while you continue to work in the main R, then the window > could signal you when the function finishes.That is really not advised. R is not designed to run asynchronous R commands and is not protected against quite a lot of things which can happen if you try that (many low-level routines are not re-entrant, for example). Allowing callbacks to either run simple things (as happens from e.g. the GUI menus) whilst a task is running, or to do almost all the running (as happens with a menu system built in Tk) is fairly safe just because only one task is likely to run at a time. For over a decade Duncan TL has promised a facility to run tasks in parallel in R (as I recall the estimate at DSC 2001 was 12 months). So the only safe way at present (and the foreseeable future) is to run separate processes. Packages snow and multicore provide means to do that (and to wait for and collect results): in the case of multicore the parallel tasks work on a copy of the current session and so you do come close to the appearance of running aysnchronous tasks. (By choosing to use Windows you exclude yourself from multicore.)> > -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Richard M. Heiberger > Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 3:30 PM > To: r-help > Subject: [R] running R commands asynchronously > > I am interested in running R commands asynchronously. > > My first choice is in the same R session that I am currently in. > Here, the goal would be to run something like > > RunAsynchSameSession(myfunction(), "outputname.rda") > > Once RunAsynchSameSession had started myfunction(), > RunAsynchSameSession would complete immediately. myfunction would > keep going. It is OK if execution of the myfunction() command > prevents new input to R until it has completed. The important feature > is that RunAsynchSameSession must tell the progam that called it that > it was done. > > Second choice is to start an independent process, BATCH or something > similar, and save the resulting data objects in an .rda file. > > RunAsynchBatch("myfile.r", "outputname.rda") > > The RunAsynchBatch would start a batch process and complete > immediately after starting the batch file. The batch file would run > independently until it was completed. While I know how to do this, > for example with system(wait=FALSE), I would appreciate seeing a > worked collection of statements, including getting outputname.rda back > to the original R session. I am working on Windows. > > Rich-- Brian D. Ripley, ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595
On 06/10/2011 02:29 PM, Richard M. Heiberger wrote:> I am interested in running R commands asynchronously. > > My first choice is in the same R session that I am currently in. > Here, the goal would be to run something like > > RunAsynchSameSession(myfunction(), "outputname.rda") > > Once RunAsynchSameSession had started myfunction(), > RunAsynchSameSession would complete immediately. myfunction would > keep going. It is OK if execution of the myfunction() command > prevents new input to R until it has completed. The important feature > is that RunAsynchSameSession must tell the progam that called it that > it was done.somewhere in-between, starting a new R session but keeping the communication within the original. library(snow) cl <- makeSOCKcluster("localhost") sendCall(cl[[1]], function(n) { Sys.sleep(n); n }, list(n=5)) ## do other things here... recvResult(cl[[1]]) ## blocks until result available I had hoped that I could open a non-blocking connection on the master (blocking=FALSE in the next-to-last line of newSOCKnode) and then poll with isIncomplete(cl[[1]]$con) but I couldn't get this to work (the connection, or more likely my understanding, seemed to be blocking anyway). sendCall(cl[[1]], function(n) { Sys.sleep(n); n }, list(n=5)) while(isIncomplete(cl[[1]]$con)) cat("tick\n") ## not printed recvResult(cl[[1]]) This approach might also work with the multicore package. Martin> > Second choice is to start an independent process, BATCH or something > similar, and save the resulting data objects in an .rda file. > > RunAsynchBatch("myfile.r", "outputname.rda") > > The RunAsynchBatch would start a batch process and complete > immediately after starting the batch file. The batch file would run > independently until it was completed. While I know how to do this, > for example with system(wait=FALSE), I would appreciate seeing a > worked collection of statements, including getting outputname.rda back > to the original R session. I am working on Windows. > > Rich > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at 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.-- Computational Biology Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 1100 Fairview Ave. N. PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109 Location: M1-B861 Telephone: 206 667-2793
On 06/10/2011 02:29 PM, Richard M. Heiberger wrote:> I am interested in running R commands asynchronously...You can do this with my Rdsm package on CRAN. Set up 2 Rdsm clients, which I'll call A and B. Use client A as you main R session, where you do most of your work, but start your asynchronous process in B, writing to memory shared by A and B. The code at B would look like: run task B, writing results to shared variable X[1] when done The code at A would look like: do various unrelated tasks while (X[1] == 0) ; use X[1] Norm Matloff