1

I have the awkward problem that when executing a specific powershell command (calling a powershell Module located in ~/WindowsPowerShell/Modules/) in R via system2(command = 'powershell', args = someStringVariable) it will only return "127".

Other - simpler - invocations of the module manage to produce results. But as soon as one of the three parameters (ie a [MDX] query gets a bit more complex) or reaches a certain length/size it just returns '127'.

The real bug though seems to be that both the simple query and the complex one can be moved back and fourth to a normal Powershell ISE window via copy/paste respectively readClipboard() respectively writeClipboard() (used the latter R function to avoid STRG+C and/or STRG+V for moving the simpler Module call parameters, that work correct in R, identically from R to powershell) and these will produce correct results (ie write a result file).

So my questions would be:

  1. Has anyone experienced similar behavior with system2 and powershell
  2. Are there maybe any restrictions on the length of args in system2 that I am not aware of?
  3. Could this be a version issue (between powershell and R)

OS: WINDOWS 10 Enterprise 1803

Other system info: Powershell Version: $PSVersionTable.PSVersion = 5.1.17134 (Rev 765)

R.version: 

platform       i386-w64-mingw32            
arch           i386                        
os             mingw32                     
system         i386, mingw32               
status                                     
major          3                           
minor          4.2                         
year           2017                        
month          09                          
day            28                          
svn rev        73368                       
language       R                           
version.string R version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28)
nickname       Short Summer

Hope someone has useful experience to share …

The case gets even weirder when running the same functionality on a different machine, where the only notable difference are some package versions, everything works like a charm.

Here is a list of the differing librarz versions. But I would never expect that version differences on libraries can or should have any effect on system2 since this is part of the base package. Version.x is the pkg version on my machine, Version.y is the version on the machine, where system2 works smoothly, the identical ones are not shown here. 

        Package Version.x   Version.y identical
6    assertthat     0.2.1       0.2.0     FALSE
7     backports     1.1.4       1.1.1     FALSE
13           BH  1.69.0-1    1.65.0-1     FALSE
16         boot    1.3-22      1.3-20     FALSE
20      caTools  1.17.1.1      1.17.1     FALSE
27    codetools    0.2-16      0.2-15     FALSE
28   colorspace     1.4-1       1.3-2     FALSE
36   data.table    1.12.2    1.10.4-3     FALSE
38          DBI     1.0.0         0.7     FALSE
42       digest    0.6.18      0.6.12     FALSE
47        dplyr     0.8.3       0.7.4     FALSE
51     evaluate      0.14      0.10.1     FALSE
63     forecast       8.7         8.2     FALSE
64      foreign    0.8-71      0.8-69     FALSE
65      formatR       1.6         1.5     FALSE
66      Formula     1.2-3       1.2-2     FALSE
70      ggplot2     3.2.0       2.2.1     FALSE
81       gtable     0.3.0       0.2.0     FALSE
83        highr       0.8         0.6     FALSE
90         httr     1.4.0       1.3.1     FALSE
91         httr     1.4.0       1.3.1     FALSE
93     jsonlite       1.6         1.5     FALSE
95        knitr      1.23        1.17     FALSE
98      lattice   0.20-38     0.20-35     FALSE
100    lazyeval     0.2.2       0.2.1     FALSE
102        lme4    1.1-21      1.1-14     FALSE
103      lmtest    0.9-37      0.9-35     FALSE
106    markdown       1.0         0.8     FALSE
107        MASS  7.3-51.4      7.3-47     FALSE
114        mgcv    1.8-28      1.8-20     FALSE
115        mime       0.7         0.5     FALSE
122     munsell     0.5.0       0.4.3     FALSE
124        nlme   3.1-140     3.1-131     FALSE
128     openssl       1.3       0.9.9     FALSE
135       plogr     0.2.0       0.1-1     FALSE
142    quadprog     1.5-7       1.5-5     FALSE
143    quantreg      5.41        5.34     FALSE
147          R6     2.4.0       2.2.2     FALSE
151        Rcpp     1.0.1     0.12.14     FALSE
160    reshape2     1.4.3       1.4.2     FALSE
162       rlang     0.4.0 0.3.99.9003     FALSE
169  rstudioapi      0.10         0.7     FALSE
171    sandwich     2.5-1       2.4-0     FALSE
172      scales     1.0.0       0.5.0     FALSE
175       shiny     1.3.2       1.0.5     FALSE
177 sourcetools     0.1.7       0.1.6     FALSE
188     stringi     1.4.3       1.1.6     FALSE
189     stringr     1.4.0       1.2.0     FALSE
199      tibble     2.1.3       1.3.4     FALSE
200    timeDate  3043.102    3042.101     FALSE
206     tseries   0.10-47     0.10-42     FALSE
207         TTR    0.23-4      0.23-2     FALSE
213 viridisLite     0.3.0       0.2.0     FALSE
215       withr     2.1.2       2.1.0     FALSE
216         XML 3.98-1.19    3.98-1.9     FALSE
218      xtable     1.8-4       1.8-2     FALSE
219         xts    0.11-2      0.10-0     FALSE
220        yaml     2.2.0      2.1.14     FALSE
221         zoo     1.8-6       1.8-0     FALSE

I have come to conclude that this is a RStudio bug - another weird feature for example this command, which will run in RStudios Terminal when R is started in the Terminal but not in RStudios Console. 

system2("powershell", args = "Con-XLCube 'Data source=https://someCubeServer/connection/string.dll;Provider=MSOLAP;Initial Catalog=Database;' 'Select Non Empty {[Measures].[Amount]} On Columns, Non Empty  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Account].[Account Type].[Account Type].Members} )  *  (  ( { [Account].[SAP Account Number].&[1730001202],[Account].[SAP Account Number].&[4917324009],[Account].[SAP Account Number].&[4917325006],[Account].[SAP Account Number].&[4917399001],[Account].[SAP Account Number].&[5977300003],[Account].[SAP Account Number].&[4977300006]} *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Account].[SAP Description Long].[SAP Description Long].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Folder].[Folders Short Name].[Folders Short Name].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Counterparty].[Full Name].[Full Name].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Account].[Legal Entity Partner Code].[Legal Entity Partner Code].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Trade].[Bundle Id].[Bundle Id].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Trade].[EMIR One Confirmation].[EMIR One Confirmation].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Trade].[Internal Reference].[Internal Reference].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Trade].[Trade Id].[Trade Id].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Product].[Product Type].[Product Type].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Product].[EG Product Type].[EG Product Type].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Product].[Product Currency].[Product Currency].Members} )  *  (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Product].[Product Currency2].[Product Currency2].Members} )  *  ( Except (  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Accounting Event].[Accounting Event Type].[Accounting Event Type].Members} )  , {[Accounting Event].[Accounting Event Type].&[CLOSING]} )  *  AddCalculatedMembers ( {[Currency].[Currency].[Currency].Members} )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  )  On Rows From [Postings] Where ([Processing Org].[Mandant].&[104],[Account].[Standard].&[IFRS],[Booking Date].[Booking Day].&[20190628],[Currency Translation Date].[Day].&[20190628],[Cumulation Type].[Cumulation Type].&[1],[Posting Status].[Posting Status].&[SENT]) Cell Properties VALUE' 'C:\\Users\\USERID\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\RtmpY9VjYM\\Test.csv'")

I have also noticed that when the command is run in the RStudio Terminal window a powershell message "Searching for Available Modules" flickers up (somehow within/across it). Could this be some process interfering in the RStudio Console but not in RGui and Terminal R? If it so, why does it not interfer on the other machine ("y")? Is there some Powershell setting I am missing or forgot to set or set wrong on machine "x"?

GWD
  • 1,387
  • 10
  • 22
  • Please set up a reproducible example (i.e., [MCVE]). Interesting question, but don't know what to test on my end to reproduce issue. – Parfait Jul 15 '19 at 18:31
  • I am deeply sorry but a reprex is practically impossible to set up - at least in reasonable time, because of the size of the involved parameters to the Module (espacially the MDX involved). That is why I tried to boil it down to the question why is system2 not performing a command that fully functions via copy/paste. The less complicated Module call is/was basically just the test/proof, that the Module works fine in powershell and via system2 as well (in that simpler case). So I am asking myself what could be reasons/pitfalls that a Module call (the heavy one) runs in PS and not via system2? – GWD Jul 15 '19 at 19:21
  • I am onto something here … I forgot to mention that I am running the whole thing on RStudio 1.1.456 (on both machines) .. and that my Code (ie `system2`) also works in good old plain RGui 3-4.2 (32bit). And here the only difference in output of `search()` is `"tools:rstudio"`. So my next shot is going to be to eg. downgrade package `rstudioapi` since although I do not see that on the search path I am speculating that it could play a part in there. – GWD Jul 16 '19 at 10:10
  • As expected, downgrading rstudioapi package to a lower version (0.7, as on the "good"machine) did not resolve anything here. :-( – GWD Jul 16 '19 at 10:26
  • I have come to the conclusion that this is most probably a RStudio 1.1.456 Console bug, since the exact same command will run in RGui, RStudio 1.2.1335, even RStudio 1.1.456 Terminal window when R is started there; it will also run on some colleagues machine with (almost) the same setup. And it used to work a couple of days ago on my machine - so I guess something got broken along the way, a couple of days ago. Gonna talk to IT for a fresh install of RStudio 1.1.456 ... until then I will use VS Code in combo with RStudio (the latter for building and devtools::document() features) – GWD Jul 17 '19 at 09:51

0 Answers0