R statistics/Installation

First of all you need to install R onto your system.

R and many of its addon packages are pre-built and distributed through the CRAN network of mirrors. In addition many Linux distributions prepackage R and a number of the most popular addon toolboxes.

All the necessary functions for the GRASS GIS interface are in packages on CRAN, so that on Linux/Unix (or Mac OSX) installing rgdal from source with PROJ and GDAL installed, or Windows installing from binary, the required packages are: sp; maptools; rgdal; spgrass - all on CRAN.

Status of "rgrass" packages

See overview here: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rgrass/index.html

Source packages

From the R console first pick a local mirror:

chooseCRANmirror()

you can then see which repos has been picked with

options("repos")

To permanently save the mirror site add it to ~/.Rprofile. For example:

options(repos=c(CRAN="http://cran.stat.auckland.ac.nz"))

and then run install.packages() as in the Quick Start section above.

For more information see http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-admin.html

Linux

Debian and Ubuntu

R and a number of pre-build cran packages are already present in the main repositories. Start with:

# apt-get install r-base r-cran-vr r-cran-rodbc r-cran-xml

Once those are installed start "R" at the command prompt and install the libraries not packaged by the OS:

n.b. r-cran-sp is now shipped as an official Debian/Ubuntu package and can be installed with apt as above

install.packages("sp")
install.packages("gstat")

You can install the rgdal CRAN package directly:

 install.packages("rgdal")

And finally:

install.packages("rgrass", dependencies = TRUE)

Debian and Ubuntu specific help is also available from the R-project website.

RPM based

RedHat, Fedora, openSuse, ... and similar distros: take the latest R RPM and install it

R and a number of pre-build cran packages are already present in the main repositories. Start with:

# sudo dnf install R-core R-core-devel R-XML

Once those are installed, start as normal user "R" at the command prompt and install the libraries not packaged by the distro provider:

R

install.packages("rgrass", dependencies = TRUE)

Usage: You have the best user experience if you launch R within a running GRASS GIS session (then R automatically recognizes the current settings of the Computational region and "sees" the GRASS maps).

Mac OSX

Start a R session, then

for install.packages() you might have to rely on building packages from source code. try:

R

install.packages("rgrass", type="source", dependencies = TRUE)

Startup of GRASS from within R:

First you need to find the path to the GRASS binaries: Control-click on the GRASS.app and you'll get a popup menu; select "Show Package Contents" - this opens you to the directory structure. Go to Contents->MacOS which would be "GISBASE"; So, in my case, the "gisBase" parameter is "/HD/Applications/Grass-8.2.app/Contents/MacOS". If you Command-click at the top of the window on the folder icon beside "MacOS" (from the line above this one), you can see the full path.

Now we can run GRASS from within a R session:

initGRASS(gisBase ='/Applications/GRASS/GRASS-8.2.app/Contents/MacOS', 
          location = 'geostat2012_ll', mapset = 'user1', 
          gisDbase = '/Users/Lars/Documents/Biologi/grassdata', override = TRUE)

Troubleshooting

If you get an error message when trying to call GRASS from R containing this line: dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libintl.8.dylib you need to establish a link from /Applications/Grass/GRASS-8.2.app/Contents/MacOS/lib/libintl.8.dylib to /usr/local/lib. This can be done through Terminal with the command:

sudo ln -s /Applications/Grass/GRASS-8.2.app/Contents/MacOS/lib/libintl.8.dylib /usr/local/lib/

Note: The path to the GRASS-x.x.app and the version number in libintl.X.dylib must reflect your own configuration.

MS Windows

Installation

Run:

install.packages("rgrass", dependencies = TRUE)

or install Task View 'Spatial' - Analysis of Spatial Data

install.packages("ctv")
library("ctv")
install.views("Spatial")

Usage

In winGRASS (standalone installer and OSGeo4W) the installation path of R and RStudio are dynamically loaded into PATH.

Start winGRASS, bring the winGRASS-windows console in front and type R for opening a R-session (command line mode) inside a GRASS-session.
Start winGRASS, bring the winGRASS-windows console in front and type RGui for opening a R-session (GUI mode) inside a GRASS-session.