R() / Rscript(): Calling R / Rscript with identical setup as the main process

[HenrikBengtsson]

Created for Wiki entry.

Wish / Suggestion

Implement functions R() and Rscript() for calling R / Rscript via system() with the option to use identical system setup as the main process, e.g.

• same system environment variables (e.g. PATH, same .Renviron file, ...)
• same library paths (.libPaths())
• same .Rprofile
• same options()
• ...

Example:

Rscript("-e"="commandArgs()", seed=34, foo="Hello world!")

[HenrikBengtsson]

Comment since it's slightly related: R devel just gained tools::Rcmd();

Rcmd <- function(args, ...)
{
    if(.Platform$OS.type == "windows")
        system2(file.path(R.home("bin"), "Rcmd.exe"), args, ...)
    else
        system2(file.path(R.home("bin"), "R"), c("CMD", args), ...)
}