R help - Aug 2011 - Automating an R function call

Any way to run an R function every 5 minutes from the R terminal? Searched
around but couldn't find any answers. Thanks!!
Robert

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Hey,
  Sys.sleep(300)
   ?Sys.sleep
        Ken Hutchison
On Aug 12, 2554 BE, at 2:03 PM, RobertJK <RKindman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Any way to run an R function every 5 minutes from the R terminal? Searched
> around but couldn't find any answers. Thanks!!
> Robert
> 
> --
> View this message in context:
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Automating-an-R-function-call-tp3740070p3740070.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> 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.

On 12/08/2011 2:03 PM, RobertJK wrote:
> Any way to run an R function every 5 minutes from the R terminal? Searched
> around but couldn't find any answers. Thanks!!
Yes, but not in the background:

repeat {
   f()
   Sys.sleep(300)
}

If you want it run in the background, get your OS to run R to do it.  
(It's possible the tcltk package will give you access to some tcl way to 
set a background process; I don't know.  Similarly, you could call out 
to C and start up another thread, etc., but R itself is single-threaded.)

Duncan Murdoch

Do you want to be doing other things with the R terminal in the meantime?

Are you OK with the terminal being locked up between runs and just want to see
the output updated?

Is it OK to have a new instance of R run the function?


If the last one is doable then you can have your OS scheduled to run a script
every 5 minutes and the script runs your function.  How to do this depends on
your OS, fairly easy with chron on linux and related OS's (you can see the
updated file using the tail program, some versions will wait for new info to be
appended and show it automatically).  I have done this in windows before, but it
takes several clicks and I need to rediscover the correct sequence each time.

If you are happy with the 2nd set of conditions then you can just use a while
loop to repeatedly run the function and include a call to Sys.sleep to wait the
required time.  Note that if your function takes more than a couple of seconds
then you will want to reduce the amount of time accordingly.  If the amount of
time your function takes varies then you will not be running exactly every 5
minutes.

If you need the 1st set of conditions, then you could load the tcltk2 package
and use the tclTaskSchedule function.  This is the most dangerous situation, you
could end up with messed up data if you are trying to edit something at the same
time the function runs and also tries to use/edit it.

-- 
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
801.408.8111

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of RobertJK
> Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 12:03 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Automating an R function call
> 
> Any way to run an R function every 5 minutes from the R terminal?
> Searched
> around but couldn't find any answers. Thanks!!
> Robert
> 
> --
> View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Automating-
> an-R-function-call-tp3740070p3740070.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> 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.