[R] Making R talk to Win/OpenBUGS in Linux (again)

Gregor Gorjanc gregor.gorjanc at gmail.com
Sun Apr 30 13:17:19 CEST 2006


Hello Paul,

thank you very much for this report. You caught a bug in R2WinBUGS that
was introduced by me. I added support for winepath in 1.1-1 version.
Since I switch between Windows and Linux I always set WINEPATH and then
use it in bugs(). That's why I forgot to add it in further calls in
bugs(). How silly :( This actually means that nobody else beside you
tried to run R2WinBUGS under Linux. To bad. Please report summary to
BUGS list as you have also asked there for help and I did not had time
to answer you. I have been successfully running R2WinBUGS under Linux
for quite some time now.

Now you have the following options:

A Set WINEPATH before you call bugs()

i.e.

WINEPATH <- "/usr/bin/winepath"

bugs(..., WINEPATH=WINEPATH)

This is the fastest approach for you.

B Apply the following diffs, build and install R2WinBUGS by yourself

I am also sendind them to maintainer of the package. So this should be
fixed soon also on CRAN. Uwe?

--- R2WinBUGSOrig/R/bugs.R      2006-04-29 21:44:59.000000000 +0200
+++ R2WinBUGS/R/bugs.R  2006-04-30 12:52:36.000000000 +0200
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@
   } else new.model.file <- model.file
   bugs.script(parameters.to.save, n.chains, n.iter, n.burnin, n.thin,
     bugs.directory, new.model.file, debug=debug, is.inits=!is.null(inits),
-    bin = bin, DIC = DIC, useWINE = useWINE, newWINE = newWINE)
+    bin = bin, DIC = DIC, useWINE = useWINE, newWINE = newWINE,
WINEPATH=WINEPATH)
   #if (useWINE && missing(bugs.directory))
   #  bugs.directory <- winedriveTr(bugs.directory)
   bugs.run(n.burnin, bugs.directory, WINE = WINE)

--- R2WinBUGSOrig/R/bugs.script.R       2006-04-29 21:44:59.000000000 +0200
+++ R2WinBUGS/R/bugs.script.R   2006-04-30 12:52:12.000000000 +0200
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 "bugs.script" <-
 function (parameters.to.save, n.chains, n.iter, n.burnin,
     n.thin, bugs.directory, model.file, debug=FALSE, is.inits, bin,
-    DIC = FALSE, useWINE = FALSE, newWINE = FALSE){
+    DIC = FALSE, useWINE = FALSE, newWINE = FALSE, WINEPATH=NULL){

> I'm back!
> 
> I've just learned that, on a fully updated Fedora Core Linux5 sytem,
> the working solution to access Winbugs under wine via the R package
> "rbugs" no longer works.  Here was my last post on this topic (with
> the formerly working solution) from January.
> 
> http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/68497.html
> 
> Currently, what happens is that WinBUGS starts up, but just sits there
> doing nothing.  I do not know if the problem is due to a change in
> wine or rbugs, and since both of them are updated, it is hard to say. 
> I'm thinking it is a wine or perhaps even a kernel related problem. 
> Inside WinBUGS running under wine, it does not even work to manually
> open the bugs.script file and then choose "Model/Script".  it just
> returns a screen full of errors saying the commands fail.  I don't
> think rbugs gets even that far, however, since the WinBUGS window does
> pop up, but nothing happens.
> 
> rbugs has been retooled to emphasize use of linbugs, the
> OpenBUGS-based thing for linux, but I can't get linbugs to run at all
> on my system, and the linbugs program itself appears to have been
> removed from OpenBUGS distribution altogether. (I'm following that
> with separate email to the OpenBUGS group).
> 
> I think JAGS is the right long term solution, but currently I'm in the
> middle of a semester trying to teach about Bayesian stats and the
> students have some familiarity with WinBUGS and I'm interested in
> making it work. So while I'm learning more about JAGS and the bayesmix
> package that supports access to it from R, I still would like a way to
> interact with Winbugs through Wine.
> 
> If anybody has rbugs working in current Linux, please tell me
> how--give me a working example?
> 
> In the meanwhile, I've noticed that nightly updates have successfully
> installed R2WinBUGS on linux systems and I've got a small test case
> that I'd like to ask about.  Since rbugs is a linux adaptation of
> R2WinBUGS, and R2WinBUGS is now buildable on Linux, it looks like
> R2WinBUGS may be the way to go.  But it fails.  The error centers
> around the "WINEPATH" setting.  I've learned that wine has a function
> "winepath" that returns information that programs can use, and I've
> fiddled this lots of ways, but it fails, saying
> 
> 
> Error in paste(WINEPATH, "-w", x) : object "WINEPATH" not found
> library(R2WinBUGS)
> 
> I hope that by giving you this small not-yet-working example, you can
> spot where I'm going wrong.
> 
> ##Paul Johnson 2006-04-29
> 
> 
> library(R2WinBUGS)
> # Copied from Prof Andrew Gelman's example
> model.file <- system.file(package = "R2WinBUGS", "model", "schools.txt")
> #
> file.show(model.file)
> data(schools)
> schools
> 
> J <- nrow(schools)
> y <- schools$estimate
> sigma.y <- schools$sd
> data <- list ("J", "y", "sigma.y")
> inits <- function(){
>     list(theta = rnorm(J, 0, 100), mu.theta = rnorm(1, 0, 100),
>         sigma.theta = runif(1, 0, 100))
> }
> parameters <- c("theta", "mu.theta", "sigma.theta")
> 
> 
> schools.sim <- bugs(data, inits, parameters, model.file, n.chains = 3,
> n.iter = 1000,bugs.directory = "/usr/local/share/WinBUGS14/",
> working.directory = "/tmp", clearWD = FALSE, useWINE=T, newWINE=T,
> WINE="/usr/bin/wine",WINEPATH="/usr/bin/winepath")
> 
> 
> 
> I do have the binary "/usr/bin/winepath", but can't tell how to give
> R2WinBUGS what it wants.  Many failed efforts below:
> 
> 
> 
>>> schools.sim <- bugs(data, inits, parameters, model.file, n.chains = 3, n.iter = 1000,bugs.directory = "/usr/local/share/WinBUGS14/", working.directory = "/tmp", clearWD = FALSE, useWINE=T, newWINE=T, WINE="/usr/bin/wine",WINEPATH="/usr/bin/")
> 
> Error in paste(WINEPATH, "-w", x) : object "WINEPATH" not found
> 
>>> schools.sim <- bugs(data, inits, parameters, model.file, n.chains = 3, n.iter = 1000,bugs.directory = "/usr/local/share/WinBUGS14/", working.directory = "/tmp", clearWD = FALSE, useWINE=T, newWINE=T, WINE="/usr/bin/wine")
> 
> Error in if (!nchar(WINEPATH)) { : argument is of length zero
> 
>>> schools.sim <- bugs(data, inits, parameters, model.file, n.chains = 3, n.iter = 1000,bugs.directory = "/usr/local/share/WinBUGS14/", working.directory = "/tmp", clearWD = FALSE, useWINE=T, newWINE=T, WINE="/usr/bin/wine",WINEPATH="/usr/bin")
> 
> Error in paste(WINEPATH, "-w", x) : object "WINEPATH" not found
> 
>>>
> 
> 
> I know there are many unknowns here, but hope somebody has at least
> one working example that we can build on.


-- 
Lep pozdrav / With regards,
    Gregor Gorjanc

----------------------------------------------------------------------
University of Ljubljana     PhD student
Biotechnical Faculty
Zootechnical Department     URI: http://www.bfro.uni-lj.si/MR/ggorjan
Groblje 3                   mail: gregor.gorjanc <at> bfro.uni-lj.si

SI-1230 Domzale             tel: +386 (0)1 72 17 861
Slovenia, Europe            fax: +386 (0)1 72 17 888

----------------------------------------------------------------------
"One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it,
 you have no certainty until you try." Sophocles ~ 450 B.C.
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