[R] passing command line arguments to 'R CMD BATCH myScript.R'

[Uwe Ligges]

Oleg Sklyar wrote:

> Hi Community,
> 
> I have a question about how to pass command line parameters to R script 
> running in the batch mode. The problem is: there is a banch of data 
> files which are to be processed by R script called from a web-server, 
> i.e. in the batch mode. The web server generates data files and passes 
> their names calling 'R CMD BATCH' one by one for every file. Now the 
> question is how to call 'R CMD BATCH myScript.R' with parameters, like 
> file name to process? I know how to read the parameters passed to an R 
> script, but I don't know how to pass them.
> 
> There is an option --args that should cut the rest of the line off the 
> command line. The problem is however that BATCH syntax is: 'R CMD BATCH 
> [options] inFile [outFile]', i.e. if I write
> 'R CMD BATCH --args myDataFile myScript.R' or 'R CMD BATCH --args 
> myDataFile < myScript.R' (similar was posted on some R help under 
> Windows) it is not going to work because then BATCH doesn't know about 
> myScript.R - it is considered as a parameter, so only 'R CMD BATCH' is 
> executed. If however I use 'R CMD BATCH myScript --args myDataFile' then 
> R understands --args as an output file and generates a file with that name.
> 
> Does anyone has a solution for the problem?
> 
> Best regards
> Oleg
> 

See ?commandArgs

Uwe Ligges