Rcgi - running R over the web
=============================

You may find reading other files more appropriate:
   CHANGES  documents differences between versions of Rcgi
   INSTALL  gives installation instructions
   README   details the licence that Rcgi is released under
   HOWTO    is a web-author's guide to using Rcgi

This file was last changed with release 1b of Rcgi.

INSTALLATION
============

Installation should be straightforward.  You need the
following software:
                             Tested version(s)
 - R                         0.62.3 and 0.62.4
 - A HTTP daemon             Apache 1.3.1 on Linux and FBSD
 - Perl 5 or later           5.004
 - Ghostscript               3.33
 - netpbm (ppmtogif)         1 March 1994
 - gzip (and zcat)           1.2.4

I warn you that Rcgi runs happily on my P133/16M Linux
machine, but becomes very slow when doing PS to GIF
conversions.  It needs more pages before our P200/96M FBSD
machine slows down.  Running R itself is OK, though.

Additionally, I assume that you:
 - can run CGI processes (use ScriptAlias in Apache)
 - have an alias /Rdoc/ to the root of the R documentation tree
    (the folder that contains the "html" folder, usually
    /usr/local/lib/R/doc or similar)
    
You then need to:
1. Move the scripts go, go.ps, go.gif from this folder into a 
    CGI executable directory.
2. Make a directory for Rcgi's output.  In the default setup,
    this is /usr/local/lib/Rcgi/out which is probably a bad
    idea.  Consider having a cron job clean this directory at
    regular intervals.
3. Edit the tops of the scripts to define where perl lives and
    the directory for Rcgi's output.
4. Load the URL where r1 lives and test it out.

Please report all errors in the above instructions to
m.j.ray@uea.ac.uk - I do not think there are any, but I don't
want there to be any.


SUPPORT
=======

When Rcgi is run, it returns a reference number in the output.
The part before the colon is the process ID, which is used to
name the output files in the temporary directory.  The part
after the colon is the date and time in the form
YYYYMMDDhhmmss so that you can track down the request in the
HTTP server logs.

Rcgi comes with no formal support and no warranty.  That said,
I will do my best to follow good practice and revise the
system in light of comments.  Any bug fixes will be welcomed.
Please email them to m.j.ray@uea.ac.uk

Rcgi is a means to an end for the School of Mathematics, not
an end in itself.  Please remember that.
