Question

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how to communicate with R through VBnet( or C#)

I want to generate a random number from log-normal and triangular distribution in VB.NET.

To do so I thought of integrating R with VB.NET. I added following reference to R,

STATCONNECTORCLNTLib;
StatConnectorCommonLib;
STATCONNECTORSRVLib;

My questions:

1. is there anything else that I need to do to use R in VB.NET
2. How can I use R commands in VB.NET?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Using R from .NET

You can find an example on how to use R from .NET here:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/25819/The-R-Statistical-Language-and-C-NET-Foundations

It is written for C#, but I think it’s easy to translate to VB.NET.

The most important thing seems to be initalizing which is done by:

Dim sc1 As New StatConnectorSRVLib.StatConnectorClass()
sc1.Init("R")

After this you can use the sc1 object to evaluate symbols etc.

Alternative: Random number generator library for .NET

However if I may make a suggestion. Why not use a random number library for .NET like this one?

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/15102/NET-random-number-generators-and-distributions

It contains both log-normal and triangular distribution, so it should fit your need and you don’t need to have R installed. It will probably faster also because it’s a native .NET library.