R system2 run different scripts in parallel

Question

I believe using system2() is a good option for running two R scripts in parallel. I'm trying something like the following:

Sys.time()
system2(command = 'Sys.sleep(5)', wait = FALSE)
system2('Sys.sleep(7)', wait = FALSE)
Sys.time()

However, it does not work and I'm also getting this warning:

running command '"Sys.sleep(7)"' had status 127

The documentation of system or system2 does not show any example and I can't find much around. Has anyone tried this option to solve this problem?

Parameter command expects a system command, not an R command. — F. Privé
– F. Privé, Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 6:38
The R package future CRAN.R-project.org/package=future can be used to evaluate expressions in parallel. — Nairolf
– Nairolf, Commented Oct 26, 2018 at 20:23

Nairolf · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-26 17:59:53Z

1

The following works for me:

 system("Rscript -e 'Sys.sleep(5); \"task 1\"'", wait=FALSE)
 system("Rscript -e 'Sys.sleep(7); \"task 2\"'", wait=TRUE)
 [1] "task 1"
 [1] "task 2"

Version with system2() (thanks to the comment of HenrikB):

system2("Rscript", args = c("-e", "'Sys.sleep(5); \"task 1\"'"), wait=FALSE)
system2("Rscript", args = c("-e", "'Sys.sleep(7); \"task 2\"'"), wait=TRUE)
[1] "task 1"
[1] "task 2"

edited Oct 26, 2018 at 17:59

answered Oct 26, 2018 at 15:30

Nairolf

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1 Comment

HenrikB Over a year ago

The first argument to system2() must be an executable, so you want to use system2("Rscript", args = c("-e", "'Sys.sleep(5); \"task 1\"'"), ...) in the latter case.

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