locatexec

The package aims to allow the localization of external programs such as “python”, “Google Chrome”, “node.js” and “LibreOffice” in order to be able to easily call them from R.

This makes it easier to call these programs from R from various operating systems.

library(locatexec)

if(exec_available("node")){
  message(exec_version("node"))
  message(node_exec())
}
#> 12.16.0
#> C:/Program Files/nodejs/node.exe

exec	exec_fun	available	version	path
node	node_exec()	TRUE	12.16.0	C:/Program Files/nodejs/node.exe
chrome	chrome_exec()	TRUE	89.0.4389.82	C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe
python	python_exec()	TRUE	3.9.1	C:/Users/dgohe/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python39/python.exe
libreoffice	libreoffice_exec()	TRUE	7.1.0.3	C:/Program Files/LibreOffice/program/soffice.com
excel	excel_exec()	TRUE	16	C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/root/Office16/EXCEL.exe
powerpoint	powerpoint_exec()	TRUE	16	C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/root/Office16/POWERPNT.exe
pip	pip_exec()	TRUE	20.2.3	C:/Users/dgohe/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python39/Scripts/pip.exe
firefox	firefox_exec()	TRUE	86.0.1	C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe
npm	npm_exec()	TRUE	6.13.4	C:/Program Files/nodejs/npm.cmd
word	word_exec()	TRUE	16	C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/root/Office16/WINWORD.exe

Motivations

This was motivated by the need for tools similar to rmarkdown::pandoc_available() and rmarkdown::pandoc_exec() but allowing to locate external programs other than pandoc.

I need to use these programs from R without having heavy dependencies. These functions will mainly be used to automate some visual tests or to improve the documentation of other packages.

Installation

You can install the CRAN version with:

install.packages("locatexec")

Related work

• Packages pagedown is providing find_chrome() for finding “Google Chrome”.

• Packages findpython is providing find_python_cmd() for finding "python".

• If you want to go deeper with ‘R’ and ‘node.js’, I recommend package packer.

• If you want to go deeper with ‘R’ and ‘Python’, I recommend package reticulate.