This is a Heroku buildpack for applications which use R for statistical computing and CRAN for R packages.
R is ‘GNU S’, a freely available language and environment for statistical computing and graphics which provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques: linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time series analysis, classification, clustering, etc. Please consult the R project homepage for further information.
CRAN is a network of ftp and web servers around the world that store identical, up-to-date, versions of code and documentation for R.
Example usage:
$ ls
init.r prog1.r prog2.r ...
$ heroku create --stack cedar --buildpack http://github.com/virtualstaticvoid/heroku-buildpack-r.git
$ git push heroku master
...
-----> Heroku receiving push
-----> Fetching custom buildpack
-----> R app detected
-----> Vendoring R x.xx.x
Executing init.r script
...
-----> R successfully installed
The buildpack will detect your app makes use of R if it has the init.r file in the root.
The R runtime is vendored into your slug, and includes the gcc compiler for fortran support.
To reference a specific version of the build pack, add the Git branch or tag name to the end of the build pack URL.
$ heroku create --stack cedar --buildpack http://github.com/virtualstaticvoid/heroku-buildpack-r.git#master
During the slug compilation process, the init.r R file is executed. Put code in this file to install any packages you may require.
See the Installing-packages for details. The
list of available packages can be found at http://cran.r-project.org.
# Example `init.r` file
install.packages("nlme", dependencies = TRUE)
R packages can also be included in your project source and installed when the init.r file is executed.
install.packages("optional-path-to-packages/local-r-package-file.tar.gz", repos=NULL, type="source")
You can also run the R console application as follows:
$ heroku run R
Type q() to exit the console when you are finished.
Note that the Heroku slug is read-only, so any changes you make during the session will be discarded.
This buildpack can be used in conjunction with other supported language stacks on Heroku by using the heroku-buildpack-multi buildpack.
See the example test applications which show how to use R from the console and a simple Ruby application.
The binaries used by the buildpack are for R 2.15.1, and are hosted on s3://heroku-buildpack-r/R-2.15.1-binaries.tar.gz
See the guide for building the R binaries yourself.
Due to the size of the R runtime, the slug size on Heroku, without any additional packages or program code, is approximately 98Mb.
If additional R packages are installed by the init.r script then the slug size will increase.