[R] Re: Matlab to R ?

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "Robin" == Robin Hankin <r.hankin at auckland.ac.nz>
>>>>>     on Fri, 4 Oct 2002 08:51:23 +1200 writes:

    Robin> Hello Michel a good place to start would be
    Robin> R-and-octave.txt, on the contributed section of CRAN
    Robin> (Octave is the free version of Matlab).

    Robin> This shows how common Matlab idioms translate to R.

and I assume you have seen Paul Gilbert's reply, giving "ex"
translations of a few idioms.

    Robin> There seem to be more and more people interested in
    Robin> porting from Matlab/octave to R.  How about a
    Robin> specialist mailing list?

I think a few interested people should "sit together" (in cyberspace)
and try to improve on the current state.
I've included John Eaton, the author of GNU octave (the free
matlab `substitute'), because he certainly knows more about the
matlab "syntax" than any of us (and Kurt who once new a lot
about octave).

Probably everyone agrees that a Matlab -> R translation cannot
(and probably should not) be automated to full extent.  On the
other hand, Paul Gilbert's "ex" script should be made into a
perl or python {or "octave" !?} script and could be enhanced
considerably, probably.

It could help matlab/octave users switch to R.
Another reason I'm interested to some extent is the
Statistics+Matlab community & software ("Wavelets", "Smoothers" etc)
where I would like us to get better connected to.

    Robin> How about a specialist mailing list?

Not sure if this is needed and makes sense;  I have already set up a dozen
R-SIG-* (R Special Interest Group in ****) mailing lists and
only a few are somewhat active.
But then it may make sense for a short time?

    MichelA> I have a matlab program. I would like to transfer code in
    MichelA> R. Is there any translator ?  Thanks for your help

--
Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>	http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/
Seminar fuer Statistik, ETH-Zentrum  LEO C16	Leonhardstr. 27
ETH (Federal Inst. Technology)	8092 Zurich	SWITZERLAND
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