Tag: Snippet

Using Code Editors in R

Using Enhanced Code Editors


Advantages of using enhanced code editors

1) Readability- Features like syntax coloring helps make the code more readable for documentation as well as debugging and improvement. Example functions may be colored in blue, input parameters in green, and simple default code syntax in black. Especially for lengthy programs or tweaking auto generated code by GUI, this readability comes in handy.

2) Automatic syntax error checking- Enhanced editors can prompt you if certain errors in syntax (like brackets not closed, commas misplaced)- and errors may be highlighted in color (red mostly). This helps a lot in correcting code especially if you are either new to R programming or your main focus is business insights and not just coding. Syntax debugging is thus simplified.

3) Speed of writing code- Most programmers report an increase in writing code speed when using an enhanced editor.

4) Point Breaks- You can insert breaks at certain parts of code to run some lines of code together, or debug a program. This is a big help given that default code editor makes it very cumbersome and you have to copy and paste lines of code again and again to run selectively. On an enhanced editor you can submit lines as well as paragraphs of code.

5) Auto-Completion- Auto completion enables or suggests options you to complete the syntax even when you have typed part of the function name.

Some commonly used code editors are –
Notepad++ -It supports R and also has a plugin called NPP to R.
It can be used  for a wide variety of other languages as well, and has all the features mentioned above.

Revolution R Productivity Environment (RPE)-While Revolution R has announced a new GUI to be launched in 2011- the existing enhancements to their software include a code editor called RPE.

Syntax color highlighting is already included. Code Snippets work in a fairly simply way.
Right click-
Click on Insert Code Snippet.

You can get a drop down of tasks to do- (like Analysis)
Selecting Analysis we get another list of sub-tasks (like Clustering).
Once you click on Clustering you get various options.
Like clicking clara will auto insert the code for clara clustering.

Now even if you are averse to using a GUI /or GUI creators don’t have your particular analysis you can basically type in code at an extremely fast pace.
It is useful to even experienced people who do not have to type in the entire code, but it is a boon to beginners as the parameters in function inserted by code snippet are automatically selected in multiple colors. And it can help you modify the auto generated code by your R GUI at a much faster pace.

TinnR -The most popular and a very easy to use code editor. It is available at http://www.sciviews.org/Tinn-R/
It’s disadvantage is it supports Windows operating system only.
Recommended as the beginner’s chose fore code editor.

Eclipse with R plugin http://www.walware.de/goto/statet This is recommended especially to people working with Eclipse and on Unix systems. It enables you to do most of the productivity enhancement featured in other text editors including submitting code the R session.

Gvim (http://www.vim.org/) along Vim-R-plugin2
(http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2628) should be
cited. The Vim-R-plugin developer recently added windows support to a
lean cross-platform package that works well. It can be suited as a niche text editor to people who like less features in the software. It is not as good as Eclipse or Notepad++ but is probably the simplest to use.

Using Code Snippets in Revolution R

So I am still testing Revo R on the 64 bit AMI i created on the weekend and I really like the code snippets feature in Revolution R.

Code Snippets work in a fairly simply way.

Right click– Click on Insert Code Snippet.

You can get a drop down of tasks to do- (like Analysis) Selecting Analysis we get another list of tasks (like Clustering).

Once you click on Clustering you get various options. Like clicking clara will auto insert the code

Now even if you are averse to using a GUI /or GUI creators don’t have your particular analysis you can basically type in code at an extremely fast pace.

It is useful to people who do not have to type in the entire code, but it is a boon to beginners as the parameters in function inserted by code snippet are automatically selected in multiple colors.

Also separately if are typing code for a function and hover, the various parameters for that particular function are shown.

Quite possibly the fastest way to write R code- and it is un matched by other code editors I am testing including Vim,Notepad++,Eclipse R etc.

The RPE (R Productivity Environment for windows- horrible bureaucratic name is the only flaw here) thus helps as it is quite thoughtfully designed. Interestingly they even have a record macro feature – which I am quite unsure of , but looks like automating some tasks. That’s next 🙂

See screenshot –

It would be quite nice to see the new Revo R GUI if it becomes available if it is equally intuitively designed considering it now has the founders of SPSS and one founder of R* as it’s members-it should be a keenly anticipated product. again Revolution could also try creating a Paid Amazon AMI and try renting the software by the hour at least as technology demonstrator as the big analytics world seems unaware of the work they have been up to.

without getting much noise on how much the other founder of R loves Revo 😉 )

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