[ESS] Launching R executables within custom shell environments

[Kyle Andrews]

Thanks for sharing Dominic! I didn't know about envrc as an emacs frontend
to direnv. That looks quite interesting. I really like the idea of
buffer-local environments.

On Tue, Apr 5, 2022, 10:48 Dominic Steinitz <dominic using steinitz.org> wrote:

> For reasons I don’t understand, the ESS mailing list is ignoring my
> responses - maybe someone can forward this on to the list?
>
> Dominic Steinitz
> dominic using steinitz.org
> http://idontgetoutmuch.org
> Twitter: @idontgetoutmuch
>
> Dear ESS users,
>
> I'm interested if there is anyone on this mailing list who uses Emacs
> Speaks Statistics from within Guix or Nix, both of which bake
> reproducibility directly into their operating systems) or from anyone
> who might otherwise be familiar with some elisp code which uses the ESS
> remote session functionality to start an R interpreter from a different
> environment on the local system (such that it behaves great without
> having to worry about conflicting environment variables)?
>
> That was a mouthful, but I hope that was enough to peak someones
> interest. I'm just looking to see if this problem has already been
> well handled.
>
> Thanks,
> Kyle
>
>
> Hi Kyle,
>
> I use `direnv` and https://github.com/purcell/envrc. I can’t remember the
> exact sequence but I think I did `nix-env -i direnv` and then set up a
> `.envrc` with the line `use nix` in it. You might have to do `M-x
> envrc-allow`. Then your nix environment is available in emacs (as well as
> the same one being in a shell). Then I just `M-x R`.
>
> FWIW I have
>
> ```
>
>  '(package-selected-packages
>    '(forge poly-markdown polymode poly-R envrc direnv json-mode stan-mode
> git-timemachine ein markdown-mode exec-path-from-shell nix-mode ess
> matlab-mode haskell-mode helm magit use-package))
>
> ```
>
> And my current `shell.nix` is
>
> ```
>
> let
>
> rOverlay = rself: rsuper: {
>   rPackages = rsuper.rPackages.override {
>     overrides = {
>       smcsamplers = (rself.rPackages.buildRPackage {
>         name = "smcsamplers";
>         src = rself.fetchFromGitHub {
>           owner = "pierrejacob";
>           repo = "smcsamplers";
>           rev = "097192f7d5df520d9b026d442dfec493a3051374";
>           sha256 = "00facn1ylcbai4sbcidpp991899csz2ppmmkv0khvqxfncddr0f2";
>         };
>         propagatedBuildInputs = [ rsuper.rPackages.coda
> rsuper.rPackages.MASS rsuper.rPackages.mvtnorm rsuper.rPackages.loo
> rsuper.rPackages.shape rsuper.rPackages.rstan rsuper.rPackages.tidyverse
> rsuper.rPackages.doParallel rsuper.rPackages.igraph rsuper.rPackages.ggraph
> rsuper.rPackages.doRNG rsuper.rPackages.reshape2 ];
>       });
>
>       cmdstanr = (rself.rPackages.buildRPackage {
>         name = "cmdstanr";
>         src = rself.fetchFromGitHub {
>           owner = "stan-dev";
>           repo = "cmdstanr";
>           rev = "2e24ec873c5513b41fba90ee59e0dffcd27a479c";
>           sha256 =
> "sha256:0nrqlidsrykszasdypsldsbhv4dcbrj9awyyzq7rb6kc5y8fnhvi";
>         };
>         propagatedBuildInputs = [ rsuper.rPackages.coda
> rsuper.rPackages.MASS rsuper.rPackages.mvtnorm rsuper.rPackages.loo
> rsuper.rPackages.shape rsuper.rPackages.rstan rsuper.rPackages.tidyverse
> rsuper.rPackages.doParallel rsuper.rPackages.igraph rsuper.rPackages.ggraph
> rsuper.rPackages.doRNG rsuper.rPackages.reshape2
> rsuper.rPackages.data_table rsuper.rPackages.posterior ];
>       });
>
>     };
>   };
> };
>
> myHaskellPackageOverlay = self: super: {
>   myHaskellPackages = super.haskell.packages.ghc921.override {
>     overrides = hself: hsuper: rec {
>
>       inline-r = super.haskell.lib.dontCheck (
>         hself.callCabal2nixWithOptions "inline-r" (builtins.fetchGit {
>           url = "https://github.com/tweag/HaskellR";
>           rev = "c3ba1023480e26ade420896bcb629ceaad59f308";
>         }) "--subpath inline-r" { });
>
>       singletons = self.haskell.lib.addBuildDepends(
>         hself.callHackageDirect {
>           pkg = "singletons";
>           ver = "3.0.1";
>           sha256 = "sha256-ixHWZae6AxjRUldMgpYolXBGsOUT5ZVIw9HZkxrhHQ0=";
>         } { }) [ ];
>
>     };
>   };
> };
>
> in
>
> { nixpkgs ? import "/Users/dom/nixpkgs" {
>   config.allowBroken = true;
>   overlays = [ myHaskellPackageOverlay rOverlay ];
>   # system = "x86_64-darwin";
> }
> }:
>
> let
>   R-with-my-packages = nixpkgs.rWrapper.override{
>     packages = with nixpkgs.rPackages; [
>       ggplot2
>     ]; };
>
>   pkgs = nixpkgs;
>
>   haskellDeps = ps: with ps; [
>     base
>     cassava
>     conduit
>     Frames
>     streamly
>     (pkgs.haskell.lib.dontCheck Frames-streamly)
>     hasql
>     http-client
>     http-client-tls
>     http-conduit
>     postgresql-binary
>     (pkgs.haskell.lib.dontCheck inline-r)
>     resourcet
>     time
>     vinyl
>     xlsx
>     zip
>   ];
>
> in
>
> pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
>   name = "xxx";
>
>   buildInputs = with pkgs.rPackages; [
>     pkgs.libintlOrEmpty
>     R-with-my-packages
>     (pkgs.myHaskellPackages.ghcWithPackages haskellDeps)
>     pkgs.darwin.apple_sdk.frameworks.Cocoa
>   ];
>   shellHook = ''
>     R_LIBS_USER=$(Rscript -e ".libPaths()" | cut -c 6- | sed 's/[ \t]*$//'
> | sed 's/"//g' | sed -z 's/\n/:/g;s/:'''$/\n/' | sed 's/ //g')
>     export R_LIBS_USER
>     '';
> }
>
> ```
>
> I am guessing you don’t need the Haskell stuff. `The shellHook` is there
> so that Haskell picks up the “right” set of R libraries. I am sure it can
> be improved; I am barely an intermediate nix user. Oh I nearly forgot -
> because I was trying to fix something, I am pointing at my local copy
> of Nixpkgs. Clearly it should be pinned to something more permanent and
> reproducible.
>
> Dominic Steinitz
> dominic using steinitz.org
> http://idontgetoutmuch.org
> Twitter: @idontgetoutmuch
>
>
>

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