Heroku buildpack: R

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.

Usage

Example usage:

$ ls
init.r prog1.r prog2.r ...

$ heroku create --stack cedar-14 --buildpack http://github.com/virtualstaticvoid/heroku-buildpack-r.git#cedar-14

$ 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-14 --buildpack http://github.com/virtualstaticvoid/heroku-buildpack-r.git#master

Installing R packages

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")

R Console

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.

Scheduling a recurring job

You can use the Heroku scheduler to schedule a recurring R process.

The following command would run prog.r:

R -f ./prog.r --gui-none --no-save

Using in your applications

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 various other examples.

R Binaries

The binaries used by the buildpack are hosted on AWS S3 at s3://heroku-buildpack-r.

See the heroku-buildpack-r-build repository for building the R binaries yourself.

R Versions

Optionally, the R version and buildpack version can be configured by providing a .r-version and .r-buildpack-version file in the root directory. These files should contain 1 line of text containing the respective version. See alternate-versions for an example.

The following versions are available:

Cedar 10

R Version	Buildpack Version	Binary
2.15.1	20131211-0028	R-2.15.1-binaries-20131211-0028.tar.gz
3.0.2	20140218-0019	R-3.0.2-binaries-20140218-0019.tar.gz
3.1.0	20141127-0021	R-3.1.0-binaries-20141127-0021.tar.gz
3.1.2	20150301-1046	R-3.1.2-binaries-20150301-1046.tar.gz

NB: Remember to use the http://github.com/virtualstaticvoid/heroku-buildpack-r.git#cedar branch for the buildpack URL.

Cedar 14

R Version	Buildpack Version	Binary
3.1.0	20150303-1543	R-3.1.0-binaries-20150303-1543.tar.gz
3.1.2	20150428-2302	R-3.1.2-binaries-20150428-2302.tar.gz
3.1.3	20150718-2347	R-3.1.3-binaries-20150718-2347.tar.gz
3.2.0	20150719-0018	R-3.2.0-binaries-20150719-0018.tar.gz
3.2.1	20151119-2338	R-3.2.1-binaries-20151119-2338.tar.gz
3.2.2	20151120-0000	R-3.2.2-binaries-20151120-0000.tar.gz
3.2.3	20151214-2343	R-3.2.2-binaries-20151214-2343.tar.gz
3.2.4	20160322-0811	R-3.2.2-binaries-20160322-0811.tar.gz

NB: Remember to use the http://github.com/virtualstaticvoid/heroku-buildpack-r.git#cedar-14 branch for the buildpack URL.

Caveats

Due to the size of the R runtime, the slug size on Heroku, without any additional packages or program code, is approximately 90Mb. If additional R packages are installed by the init.r script then the slug size will increase.

Credits

Original inspiration from Noah Lorang's Rook on Heroku project.

ronert / r-buildpack