Is there any way to call .NET's string library from within R?

Question

I'm quite familiar with C# .NET, and I'd like to call functions from .NET's System.Text library, such as .PadLeft(), string.Format, etc.

Does anyone know is this is possible?

@kenny This allows calling R from .NET, but what I want is to call .NET from R. — Contango, Feb 04 '13 at 12:51
Possible solution: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12410528/calling-net-c-from-r?rq=1 — Contango, Feb 04 '13 at 12:52
Seems like a really heavy handed approach for something as simple as string padding etc. — spender, Feb 04 '13 at 12:57
@spender I actually want to call a lot of other .NET functionality from within R, but I've tried to keep the example simple. — Contango, Feb 04 '13 at 12:57

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

At the moment, as others have mentioned, it isn't easy to call .NET code from R. Using the rcom package may be viable, but the intersection of R programmers and C# programmers is pretty small, so few people have tried it.

There are some options if you are willing to tweak your technology stack.

MATLAB has excellent .NET integration and can do most things that R can do.
R has pretty good Java integration via the rJava package.

If you are happy with a pure-R solution, then the stringr package makes string handling pretty painless. stringr::str_pad is the same as C#'s string.PadLeft method. sprintf, format, formatC, and prettyNum from base R provide a variety of ways of formatting numbers. The scales package also has several formatting functions.

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 10 '13 at 10:59

I know this post has been around for some time, but since searches for answers on StackOverflow are an ongoing affair I thought I'd put another option.

The package rClr is available from https://r2clr.codeplex.com/ , soon to migrate to https://rclr.codeplex.com/. It is possible to call arbitrary .NET code, including string operations:

library(rClr)
clrCallStatic('System.String', 'Format', 'Hello, the number is {0}', 42L)
## [1] "Hello, the number is 42"

However, since strings, and arrays thereof, are on purpose converted transparently to R character vectors, instance methods such as PadLeft are not easily available. A helper class with static methods would do the trick. I'll consider adding facilities for .NET string manipulations in the package if there is interest.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 04 '13 at 12:42

1

R and .NET are not related in any way. That means that is is not easily possible.

You should simply learn the correct methods to use in R.

answered Feb 04 '13 at 12:42

Daniel Hilgarth

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Of course this is possible, but given that I am very familiar with C#, and .NET has a more comprehensive library for dealing with strings, why not? – Contango Feb 04 '13 at 12:56
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Why not write you entire program in .net then? – spender Feb 04 '13 at 12:57
@spender Because R has amazing functionality when it comes to dealing with stats, its amazing for interactively exploring data, and I'm doing a www.coursera.com course that teaches data analysis with R. – Contango Feb 04 '13 at 12:58
Downvoted for "You should simply learn the correct methods to use in R". That isn't helpful; it's patronising. – Richie Cotton Feb 04 '13 at 14:10
@RichieCotton: It certainly wasn't meant to be or even sound patronising. It is a common and understandable thing for new developers in a certain discipline: They want to use what they already know. But they are on a new platform and therefore should go with the native tools of that platform. Otherwise they will never truly understand that new platform and benefit from its full potential. BTW: Thanks for leaving a comment regarding your downvote, I appreciate that! – Daniel Hilgarth Feb 04 '13 at 14:13
@Richie Cotton I understand where you're coming from - its good to learn the features of a new platform. And I certainly will do when it comes to something as simple as strings. However, I actually want to call a lot of other custom .NET functionality from R, but I restricted the question to strings to keep everything simple. – Contango Feb 05 '13 at 09:49

Is there any way to call .NET's string library from within R?

3 Answers3