Run R script from command line

Question

I have a file, called a.r, it has a chmod of 755,

sayHello <- function(){
   print(\'hello\')
}

sayHello()

Ho

Answer 1

Yet another way to use Rscript for *Unix systems is Process Substitution.

Rscript <(zcat a.r)
# [1] "hello"

Which obviously does the same as the accepted answer, but this allows you to manipulate and run your file without saving it the power of the command line, e.g.:

Rscript <(sed s/hello/bye/ a.r)
# [1] "bye"

Similar to Rscript -e "Rcode" it also allows to run without saving into a file. So it could be used in conjunction with scripts that generate R-code, e.g.:

Rscript <(echo "head(iris,2)")
# Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
# 1          5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
# 2          4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa