Schedule R script using cron

Question

I am trying to schedule my R script using cron, but it is not working. It seems R can not find packages in cron. Anyone can help me? Thanks. The following is my bash script ``` # source my profile . /home/winie/.profile # script.R will load packages R CMD BATCH /home/script.R ```

Accepted Answer

Consider these tips

Use Rscript (or littler) rather than `R CMD BATCH`

Make sure the cron job is running as you

Make sure the script runs by itself

Test it a few times in verbose mode

My box is running the somewhat visible CRANberries via a cronjob calling an R script (which I execute via littler but Rscript should work just as well). For this, the entry in `/etc/crontab` on my Ubuntu server is

```
# every few hours, run cranberries
16 */3 * * *    edd     cd /home/edd/cranberries && ./cranberries.r
```

so every sixteen minutes past every third hour, a shell command is being run with my id. It changes into the working directory, and call the R script (which has executable modes etc).

Looking at this, I could actually just run the script and have `setwd()` command in it....

Schedule R script using cron

Solution

Problem