My code, which tries to emulate an R shell via C++, allows a user to send R commands over a tcp connection which are then passed to the R instance through the RInside::parseEvalQ function, during runtime. I have to be able to handle badly formatted commands. Whenever a bad command is given as an argument to parseEvalQ I catch the runtime error thrown (looking at RInside.cpp my specific error is flagged with 'PARSE_ERROR' 'status' within the parseEval(const string&, SEXP) function), what() gives a "St9exception" exception.
I have two problems, the first more pressing than the second:
1a . After an initial Parse Error any subsequent call to parseEvalQ results in another Parse Error even if the argument is valid. Is the embedded R instance being corrupted in some way by the parse error?
1b . The RInside documentation recommends using Rcpp::Evaluator::run to handle R exceptions in C++ (which I suspect are being thrown somewhere within the R instance during the call to parseEval(const string&, SEXP), before it returns the error status 'PARSE_ERROR'). I have experimented trying to use this but can find no examples on the web of how to practically use Rcpp::Evaluator::run.
2 . In my program I re-route stdout and stderr (at C++ level) to the file descriptor of my tcp connection, any error messages from the RInside instance get sent to the console, however regular output does not. I send RInside the command 'sink(stderr(), type="output")' in an effort to re-route stdout to stderr (as stderr appears to be showing up in my console) but regular output is still not shown. 'print(command)' works but i'd like a cleaner way of passing stdout straight to the console as in a normal R shell.
Any help and/or thoughts would be much appreciated. A distilled version of my code is shown below:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
using namespace std;
string request_cpp;
ostringstream oss;
int read(FILE* tcp_fd)
{
/* function to read input from FILE* into the 'request_cpp' string */
}
int write(FILE* tcp_fd, const string& response)
{
/* function to write a string to FILE* */
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
// create RInside object
RInside R(argc,argv);
//socket
int sd = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
addr.sin_port = htons(40650);
// set and accept connection on socket
inet_pton(AF_INET, "127.0.0.1", &addr.sin_addr);
bind(sd,(struct sockaddr*)&addr, sizeof(addr));
listen(sd,1);
int sd_i = accept(sd, 0, 0);
//re-route stdout and stderr to socket
close(1);
dup(sd_i);
close(2);
dup(sd_i);
// open read/write file descriptor to socket
FILE* fp = fdopen(sd_i,"r+");
// emulate R prompt
write(fp,"> ");
// (attempt to) redirect R's stdout to stderr
R.parseEvalQ("sink(stderr(),type=\"output\");");
// read from socket and pass commands to RInside
while( read(fp) )
{
try
{
// skip empty input
if(request_cpp == "")
{
write(fp, "> ");
continue;
}
else if(request_cpp == "q()")
{
break;
}
else
{
// clear string stream
oss.str("");
// wrap command in try
oss << "try(" << request_cpp << ");" << endl;
// send command
R.parseEvalQ(oss.str());
}
}
catch(exception e)
{
// print exception to console
write(fp, e.what());
}
write(fp, "> ");
}
fclose(fp);
close(sd_i);
exit(0);
}
