Question

I’ve a simple R script. When it is run via Rscript.exe, by default it is plotting to a PDF file. I want the script to open a plot window.

I using the command:

Rscript.exe tmp_plot.R

r file tmp_plot.R contains:

x <- 1:10
y <- sin(x)
plot(x,y)

Answer 1

You are running R in a non-interactive way – Rscript is meant for scripts – hence the default plotting device is pdf(), not x11() or whatever is your OS’s default (windows() by the looks of it). It is trivial to open an alternative device, however; use x11() or windows(). The problem you have in trying to write a script that will display a plot on screen is that, in your example code shown, the script terminates immediately upon drawing the plot, whether displayed on screen or on the pdf() device. At best you might get it to pause using Sys.sleep(), e.g.:

x <- 1:10
y <- sin(x)
x11() ## or windows()
plot(x,y)
Sys.sleep(10)

I think you are going about this the wrong way. If you want interactivity when running an R “script”, by which I mean a set of R statements that perform some analysis, you’d be better off getting an editor/IDE on your OS that allows you to step through the script a line or chunk of code at a time, plus interact with the running R session. I use Emacs and the ESS extension for this. You might consider Tinn-R or RStudio as alternatives.

Rscript is meant for running scripting or batch-like jobs that do not need human interaction or intervention.