Restart R within Rstudio

Question

I'm trying to call a simple python script from within R using system2(). I've read some information I found vague that said if 'too much' memory is used, it won't work.

If I load a large dataset and use some information in it to use as arguments to pass into system2(), it will only work if I manually click "Restart R" in call Rstudio.

What I want:

df <- read.csv('some_large_file.csv') ###extracting some info called 'args_vec' for(arg in args_vec){     system2('python', args) } 

This won't work as is. The for loop is simply passed over.

What I need:

df <- read.csv('some_large_file.csv') ###extracting some info called 'args_vec' ###something that 'restarts' R for(arg in args_vec){     system2('python', args) } 

This answer doesn't quite get what I want. Namely, it doesn't work for me within Rstudio and it calls "system" (which presents the same problem as "system2" in this case). In fact, when I put the answer referenced above in my Rprofile.site file, it just immediately closed rstudio:

I tried the suggestion as a normal function (rather than using "makeActiveBinding", and it didn't quite work.

##restart R in r session  -- doesn't work makeActiveBinding("refresh", function() { system("R --save"); q("no") }, .GlobalEnv)  ##nor did this: refresh <- function() { system("R --save"); q("no") } 

I tried a number of variations of these two options above, but this is getting long for what feels like a simple question. There's a lot I don't yet understand about the startup process and "makeActiveBinding" is a bit mysterious. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

In Rstudio, you can restart the R session by:

command/ctrl + shift + F10  

You can also use:

.rs.restartR() 

Answer 2

RStudio has this undocumented rs.restartR() which is supposed to do just that: restarting R.

However, it does not unload the packages that were loaded, nor does it clean the environment, so that I have some doubts about if it restarts R at all.