Re: SPLUS Interface

[hurley.gj@pg.com]

Said,

I'm not sure if you are looking to deploy something to a number of users, or rather are doing some sort of analysis at your desk, so I will give you two answers:

If this is something you would like to deploy via the web to a large number of people, I believe it would not be terribly hard using the StatServer package from Insightful.  This would be the type of situation where users upload some data S-Plus can handle and get returned results (perhaps in Excel).  StatServer would be an additional purchase from Insightful if you do not have it.

If this is something you are doing som type of statistical analysis at your desk and simply find the combination of the two software packages optimal as compared to one alone, depending on the "other" software package, I would consider writing an S-Plus script that would essentially involve your analysis and a location for some form of input and output (depending on what you wanted to do).  The script from the other software package writes the input for S-Plus to the location in a format your S-Plus script expects.  It then calls the S-Plus script in Batch Mode via a DOS command (I'm assuming you are on a PC).  From there, the S-Plus script runs as anticipated, creating the desired output in some format that can be read in the next line of code back into your other software package and modified for output.  I have done this type of thing before using SAS and S-Plus.  I have a conference paper in the SUGI 3!
 1 proceedings (note example 2 if you look it up) that gives some details on how to do this from SAS (these proceedings are available freely on their website).  I don't think the process would be incredibly different for a different statistical software package to execute an S-Plus script so long as it had some type of scripting capability and was not just a GUI.

Good Luck!
George.


George J. Hurley
The Procter and Gamble Company
Miami Valley Innovation Center, Box 30
11810 East Miami River Road
Cincinnati, OH 45252
P: (513) 627-0692
F: (513) 945-3441

"Said Hirsh" <shirsh@volterra.co.uk> Sent by: s-news-owner@lists.biostat.wustl.edu 01/11/2007 10:08 AM

To:        <s-news@lists.biostat.wustl.edu>         cc:                 Subject:        [S] SPLUS Interface

Hi
 
I am looking to use S-plus as a background 'hidden' software to perform calculations and report results on another software package.  Is that possible with S-plus? I know it is possible with other packages such as OxMetrics.
 
Apologies for my amateurish description but I am not and IT professional.
 
Many thanks for any help.
 
Said