From kevin.hendricks at sympatico.ca  Wed Mar 28 19:42:21 2007
From: kevin.hendricks at sympatico.ca (Kevin B. Hendricks)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:42:21 -0400
Subject: [Rd] Bridging R to OpenOffice
In-Reply-To: <460A8C77.2040009@biostat.ku.dk>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0703281210390.31714-100000@reclus.nhh.no>	<200703280648.54111.sdavis2@mail.nih.gov>	<460A6B89.8030903@sun.com>
	<200703280933.45736.sdavis2@mail.nih.gov>
	<460A8C77.2040009@biostat.ku.dk>
Message-ID: <3B913F96-E9A0-4219-AEB4-00408E3D6055@sympatico.ca>

Hi,

I would like to potentially become involved with this project.  I am  
still learning about R-project internals but I have been digging  
around a lot in the internal R-code.  That said, I am initimately  
familiar with OOo since I was involved as a volunteer for that  
project previously.  I wrote some of the OOo bridge code that allows  
Linux PPC, and Mac PPC to make UNO calls (translates the abi calling  
conventions from C++ to uno and then from uno back to C++ on the fly)  
and also wrote their first spellchecker which used the UNO  
interface.  Similar uno bridges exist for Java and python.  I don't  
think there is a bridge from uno to fortran and back but since the  
bulk of internal R code is C and that R itself can be built as a  
shared library, that should not really be an issue.

As I remember, I think someone has built an interface from Gnumeric  
to R if I am not mistaken.  That project if it is still alive might  
provide a nice model of how to interface from a spreadsheet to R  
without lots of GUI front end stuff being needed.  As I remember, it  
just allowed a number of advanced features from R to be used from  
within GNumeric (just as if you added an analysis toolpack to Excel)

It would be nice for example to have a list of extended functions  
that Calc can invoke that are actually run in R and returned to  
Calc's cells.  I can think of many matrix functions such as finding  
eigenvalues and eigenvectors that Calc can not easily do now but that  
would extend Calc's usefulness as a linear model learning tool.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

As I am not a member of R-core, I would vote that the discussion  
concerning this project stay on this list or failing that, that  
interested people CC-me directly (khendricks at sympatico.ca).

Thanks,

Kevin

On Mar 28, 2007, at 11:40 AM, Peter Dalgaard wrote:

> Sean Davis wrote:
>> On Wednesday 28 March 2007 09:20, Stefan Zimmermann wrote:
>>
>>> Still didn't get the point, or missed the topic ?
>>>
>>
>> I had gotten the point, yes--just trying to be helpful.  I'm sorry  
>> it wasn't
>> taken as such.



[Rd] Bridging R to OpenOffice
Kevin B. Hendricks