Windows Task Scheduler and R updates. Need basic tips
Hi Paul, This is a bit OT, but here's what I would do. 1) write the R script (or if updating packages is all you want Rscript -e "update.packages(repos = 'yourrepo', ask = FALSE)" would do it without need for a script) 2) write a silly batch file (e.g., Rupdate.bat) wrapper (maybe there are better ways, but this is easy) that contains the command to have R execute the R script (becomes slightly less silly if for example you have multiple versions of R and would like to update all of them, then the batch file could go through systemattically). If you care, you can redirect stderror and stdout from the batch file to any file you choose. 3) With appropriate privileges run (untested): schtasks /Create /SC DAILY /TN Rupdate /TR c:/path/to/Rupdate.bat /ST 19:00 which would create a task Rupdate that would run daily at 19:00 and execute Rupdate.bat. Cheers, Josh
On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 10:28 AM, Paul Johnson <pauljohn32 at gmail.com> wrote:
This is a basic Windows system administrator problem, asked by a Linux guy who is helping out in a Windows lab. I want to keep R packages up to date on MS Windows 7 with a job in the "Task Scheduler". ?I have an R program that I can run (as administrator) that updates the existing packages and then installs all the new ones. I do not understand how to run that in a dependable way in the scheduler. If I put the update script "R-update.R" in, for example, in C:\Program Files\R\R-update.R Then what? ?Do I need a CMD batch script to run the R script? I can't tell where Windows wants to write the standard output and error for my R job. And while I'm asking, does Windows care if I run R CMD BATCH C:\Program Files\R\R-update.R or R --vanilla -f C:\Program Files\R\R-update.R pj -- Paul E. Johnson Professor, Political Science ? ?Assoc. Director 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504 ? ? Center for Research Methods University of Kansas ? ? ? ? ? ? ? University of Kansas http://pj.freefaculty.org ? ? ? ? ? ?http://quant.ku.edu
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Joshua Wiley Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology Programmer Analyst II, Statistical Consulting Group University of California, Los Angeles https://joshuawiley.com/