pombredanne/irkernel

R kernel for IPython

Native R kernel for IPython

This is still experimental and unreliable. Your code should be safe, since IPython handles saving and loading notebooks in another process, but you'll lose all your variables if it crashes.

Installing

1. You'll need zmq development headers to compile rzmq, as well curl headers for R devtools.

   • Ubuntu/Debian

     sudo apt-get install libzmq3-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

   • Homebrew

     brew install zmq
     # or upgrade
     brew update
     brew upgrade zmq

   • MacPorts

     • make sure an X server is intalled, open a terminal and do the following:

       sudo port install zmq
       

     • Direct the compiler to use MacPorts libraries using:

       export CPATH=/opt/local/include
       export LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/local/lib
       

2. Start R in the same terminal, and proceed as below:

* We need development versions of several packages from Github for now,
  due to recent fixes. First, you need to make sure you have the `devtools`
  R package available. If you don't, at the R console type:

  ```coffee
  install.packages("devtools")
  ```

* Then, you can install the necessary development dependencies with:

  ```coffee
  # Need RCurl for install_github
  install.packages('RCurl')
  library(devtools)
  install_github('armstrtw/rzmq')
  install_github("takluyver/IRdisplay")
  install_github("takluyver/IRkernel")

  # Only if you have IPython 3 or above installed:
  IRkernel::installspec()
  ```

3. You'll also need IPython. If you already have a Python environment set up, install IPython using your preferred tools. If not, installing Anaconda is the quickest way to get everything you need.

Running the notebook

If you have IPython 3 installed, you can create a notebook and switch to IRkernel from the dropdown menu. In IPython 2.x, you will need to start the notebook with this command:

ipython notebook --KernelManager.kernel_cmd="['R', '-e', 'IRkernel::main()', '--args', '{connection_file}']"

You can also substitute 'qtconsole' or 'console' for 'notebook' in this command.