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rrstudioolap

Link Project and R Version

I have two different versions of R installed, one which is up to date and which I use for all my regular R coding (needs to be up to date so that I can use various updated and new packages) and one which I use to access OLAP cubes (needs to be the R Client from Microsoft, because this is the only one which supports the olapR package, and which currently uses R version 3.4.3).

Since, in theory, I only have to access the OLAP cube once a month, I "outsourced" this task to a different RStudio project, in which I download and save the required data for all other projects. Hence, all other projects never require the olapR package to be installed and can and will be run in the up to date R version.

Now, ideally I would like to link my R version to my projects, so that I do not have to change my global R version and restart RStudio every time I access the OLAP cube or work on this data retrieval project (and then switch it back). However, I could not find any options in RStudio to achieve this result.

There are a few threads out there describing the same problem, but with no satisfactory answer in my opinion:

https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/200657296-Link-Project-and-R-Version

Rstudio project using different version of R

I also tried looking for a different package than olapR but with similar functionality, but could not find anything except X4R, which seems outdated and does not work for me (https://github.com/overcoil/X4R). Sadly, I am also unable to directly access the databases which the OLAP cube uses for its results, so I cannot go "around" it.

I am happy for any help or suggestions you can offer, whether it is a general workaround to link a project to a specific R version or the (less helpful for the community) solution of accessing the OLAP cube in a different way.

Thanks in advance!

Using the answer from MrGumble I created a .bat file that will execute my .R file using the desired R installation. Even though it is not the answer I thought I would get, I think it is an even better solution to the problem.

For all facing a similar issue, here is the .bat file (never created one before, so also had to google how to do it and I guess some might be in the same position):

@echo off
title Getting data for further processing in R
echo Retrieving OLAP data
echo. 
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\R Client\R_SERVER\bin\Rscript.exe" "C:\Users\me\Documents\Projects\!Data\script.R"
echo. 
echo Saved data
echo. 
pause

Thanks again to MrGumble for his help.

Solution

  • Skip RStudio.

    RStudio is really just an editor (albeit powerful and useful) editor, which starts an R console for you (and the surrounding PATH variables, library locations, etc.).

    If your monthly task only requires you to run the R-script (or a bit of interactive work), you can simply execute your preferred version of R from the command line and have it run your R script. E.g.

    C:\Users\me>"C:\Program Files (x64)\Microsoft R\bin\Rscript" myscript.R

    You might have to define some PATH variables so that the older R doesn't look for packages in the newer R's libraries, but that depends entirely on your current setup.