Is it possible to Run R Code from Unity C# in Mono or .NET on OSX?

Question

Is there a way to run a R script using Unity's C# in Mono?

If there is no way to run an R script using Mono, I am willing to use .NET

Update

So the following code will call the R script but will not output a file if called from unity monodevelop. It would be ok to return a string to mono but changing the true and false on startInfo.UseShellExecute and startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput throws an error. Here is the C# code that will call the R code:

System.Diagnostics.Process process = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo();
startInfo.WindowStyle = System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
startInfo.FileName = "Rscript";
startInfo.WorkingDirectory = Application.dataPath + "/myUnity/Scripts/";
startInfo.Arguments = "Rexp1.R";
startInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
startInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = false;
process.StartInfo = startInfo;
process.Start();

I know for sure that the R script will output a file or I can grab stdout and hold onto it. I will be happy with outputting to a file or having unity allow for a string to be returned that is the output of the R script.

Update 2* - Here is the R script.

sink("output.txt")
nts <- matrix(rnorm(100), nrow = 500)
ds <- dist(nts,method = "euclidean", diag = TRUE, upper=TRUE)
dm <- as.matrix(ds)  # distance matrix
print(dm)
sink()

I know that r.Net uses a framework that is too high for Unity — CodeGuyRoss
– CodeGuyRoss, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 20:19
Why are you even trying to do this? For a plugin or you just want to make your game with R? — Programmer
– Programmer, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 20:29
I would like to use some functions built into R. R is a very powerful scientific research language and it could be used to shorthand many operations. I suppose you could use it for a game but I am doing research. — CodeGuyRoss
– CodeGuyRoss, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 20:31
Yes, but not directly like you can in C or C++. You can but this is not worth it as it may not work on mobile devices. Look here, here and here — Programmer
– Programmer, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 20:42
If it will work then that work be great. I never intend on supporting mobile devices. — CodeGuyRoss
– CodeGuyRoss, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 20:59

zwcloud · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-02 15:22:09Z

5

+50

Just read from the output of the process like what you have done.

I don't have a MAC computer, but it should be the same. See comments in the code.

Your R script has error on my machine, so it output to stderr instead of stdout.

using UnityEngine;

public class RunR : MonoBehaviour
{
    void Start ()
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Process process = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
        // For macOS, here should be
        //     I. "/bin/sh"
        //     II. "path_of_the_Rscript"
        process.StartInfo.FileName = @"E:\Program Files\R\R-3.3.2\bin\x64\Rscript.exe";
        // For macOS, here should be
        //     I. "-c path_of_the_Rscript Rexp1.R" if "/bin/sh" is used
        //     II. "Rexp1.R" if "path_of_the_Rscript" is used
        process.StartInfo.Arguments = "Rexp1.R";
        process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = Application.dataPath;
        process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
        process.Start();
        //read the output
        string output = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
        string err = process.StandardError.ReadToEnd();
        process.WaitForExit();
        Debug.Log(output);
        Debug.LogError(err);
    }
}

Ouput:

Note the project view. There are a Rexp1.R and a RunR.cs. The first output is Object, because there is no output from stdout and thus output is null.

After I changed the content of Rexp1.R to the following,

print("12345")
print("ABCDE")

the output in console view becomes:

UPDATE:

After installing the igraph package and removing sink("output.txt") and the last sink(), the output is:

edited Nov 2, 2016 at 15:22

answered Nov 2, 2016 at 5:19

zwcloud

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3 Comments

CodeGuyRoss Over a year ago

The R script threw an error because you needed to install the igraph library. The command to install the library can be added to the code or ran from the R command terminal : 'install.packages("igraph")'. I am still checking everything else but this looks like it should work. In any case, Thanks!

CodeGuyRoss Over a year ago

Yep, I was able to get this working. It took me a minute because I forget to add the '/' before the folder path in the workingdirectory assignment. process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = Application.dataPath + "/Scripts". After I found that, everything was good. Thanks for the help!

CodeGuyRoss Over a year ago

Just a side note for anyone who stumbles upon this answer trying to run R code through Unity. The method here could be used to run python, C, C++, or any number of other programming language scripts. This is incredibly helpful and is a cross platform (OSX or Windows) solution.

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