A web interface to an R program [closed]

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I have to develop a web interface allowing the user to enter some inputs that will be passed to an Rscript as parameters and return the result to the user.

I have some questions for someone who have done a similar web interface:

1. Which web framework to use
2. What is the easiest way to communicate the web interface and the Rscripts (within the web app architecture)
3. Should I install R on the server (if yes how to lauch the Rscripts from the web interface)

Answer 1

R has its own web server, so you could do the whole thing within R. Then there's no need to bother with choosing a framework, or getting them to talk to each other and so on - just use an R framework:

http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rook/index.html

If you don't like that for performance or other reasons, pretty much any framework will talk to R one way or another, so use what you are familiar with. I'd use Django and either call R via Rpy2 or run an Rserve process, but if you can program in PHP or Java then use a framework based on those languages. If you can't program in anything but R then either learn Python or use Rook.

Answer 2

Rstudio has a new server called Shiny which uses node.js for the UI:

https://github.com/rstudio/shiny-server

Answer 3

Rstudio provides a webinterface for R see http://rstudio.org/docs/server/getting_started

Answer 4

A very convenient way is to combine Rstudio Server and Rook (see the other answers for the links).

Rstudio Server provides a very easy way to setup an R server that can be accessed by anyone inside the network. You'll typically use it to edit and run your script on that server.

Rook allows you to easily create a web interface by mixing html code for text and interaction (like input fields, etc.) and R code. Once your script works, just launch it from within Rstudio Server, and any user (with access) will be able to connect to it, on the same IP as Rstudio Server.

I am using this setup together with googleVis and am very satisfied.

Answer 5

OpenCPU is currently, in my opinion, the most advanced free package for creating stateless (REST) web services in R. Shiny is a great framework, but if you plan to use the free community version, note that it doesn't handle concurrent calls.

Answer 6

There's a good list on the R website - http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#R-Web-Interfaces