Running Rdotnet without having R installed

[randbrown]

According to the readme, "R needs not necessarily be installed as a software on the executing machine, so long as DLL files are accessible". How does one package a C# desktop application (distributing the R DLLs) in such a scenario so the end users do not have to download and install R separately? In my case, I only need to support Windows platform and .NET Framework 4.5.2+. Can the R binaries be xcopy deployed along with the application?

[lrasmus]

Interesting, I actually didn't catch that part of the README! I'm wondering if @jmp75 can confirm that's still the case? I'm not actually sure what it would take to get this up and running, since it seems like you would still need to set some environment variables, and I know there are a lot of registry checks.

Just curious about the desire to deploy without having R installed - is it to simplify deployment to users?

[randbrown]

Yes, the reason is to simplify the installation of my software package for my end users. My end users are not developers, so they're not going to have R installed by default. So if I can just package the minimal R libraries sufficient to run a couple of R files from my C# app it would simplify things greatly. (In my case another organization has provided a complicated algorithm written in R, and I just want to be able to bundle it with my app and call it if possible, without having to worry about R being installed and configured). I saw the quote in the Readme under the software requirements section, and was hopeful that this scenario is possible. Thanks!

[kingcrimsontianyu]

@randbrown @lrasmus I deployed a medical imaging software on PCs without R installation. On my developers PC I wrote cmake code to copy the entire system R distribution (C:\Users\[username]\R\R-3.6.3) to the desired directory (e.g. Debug/Release at build time, cmake installation directory at install/package time), and package the software in .msi format that includes the R distribution.

In C# the R engine is initialized in the following way:

try
{
	// this is where I copied the system R distribution to
	string temp = Application.StartupPath + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar + "R-engine";

	string subDirName;
	if(Environment.Is64BitProcess)
	{
		subDirName = "x64";
	}
	else
	{
		subDirName = "i386";
	}

	// note how rPath and rHome are set up
	string rPath = temp + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar + "bin" + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar + subDirName;
	string rHome = temp;
	REngine.SetEnvironmentVariables(rPath, rHome);

	RDotNet.StartupParameter param = new StartupParameter();
	param.Interactive = true;
	param.Quiet = false;

	// by default: string dll = null, bool initialize = true, StartupParameter parameter = null, ICharacterDevice device = null
	REngine engine = REngine.GetInstance(null, true, param, null);

	// by default: StartupParameter parameter = null, ICharacterDevice device = null, bool setupMainLoop = true
	engine.Initialize(param, null, true);

	return engine;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
	// rethrow a simplified exception
	string msg = "Missing R engine.";
	throw new Exception(msg);
}

Hope this helps.

[lrasmus]

Thanks @kingcrimsontianyu !

[randbrown]

Thanks @kingcrimsontianyu I will look into trying this, whenever I get back onto that project. Thanks for showing your example code.