[R] Solution to communicating with UDP and other interfaces (under Linux) using R

[boB Rudis]

Hey Bob,

If you're interested, I'd be glad to see what I can do to make doing
UDP comms from R accessible across platforms without the need for a
`system()` call. Mind shooting me a private e-mail to see what your
needs are so I can try to generalize a solution from them?

-Bob

On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Robert D. Bowers <n4fbz at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> I'd spent hours with Google trying to find how to control a separate
> software package from R via a UDP interface (I could run the package under a
> "system" command, but that was too slow).  I finally figured out a way to
> communicate with UDP through R, and it works fine (using the "system"
> command) - it's also fast.
>
> (1) install software "socat" (available on most of the Linux repositories).
> It's potent software for communication stuff, btw.
>
> (2) set up the UDP 'port' to communicate with (like in a separate software
> package for passing commands and responses back and forth).
>
> (3) use the "system" command to send messages - as an example:
> system("echo \"quit\"| socat - UDP4-DATAGRAM:0.0.0.0:19004")
>
> I haven't tried receiving data from that software yet... but according to
> the writeup on socat, it should be no problem.
> You can also use the socat software to redirect from one type of connection
> to another.
>
> (I'm studying R - both for programming/running 'real world' interfaces and
> then doing the statistics on the data.)
>
> Hope this helps someone - the (tiny) few messages I've found indicated that
> it couldn't be done (they were old).  It can be done and rather simply.
>
> Bob
>
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