RReportGenerator on the Web
While the original RReportGenerator is/was designed as stand-alone, now we've developed a version that is available through a web interface. This should allow users to benefit of servers that are much more powerful, in particular if the applications are memory consuming.
http://lbgi.igbmc.fr/rreportgenerator
Contents
To run RReportGenerator on the Web you need
- A http web server (we use Apache)
- Access to R, latex and pdflatex
- for Linux we use which R , which latex and which pdflatex
- for Windows we search in the directory defined as the environment variable ProgramFiles
- The unique file rrg.tcl (it's not the source file but the compiled file !!!)
- It contains all what you need (=rrg_main.tcl + rrg_web.tcl + tcl runtime library + index.html + Logos + test scenarios and indata)
- At first run it extracts automatically the logos, index.html and creates the Web directory where the Scenarios, Indata and Outdata will be stored
Installation on Linux
- we need a directory accessible by the web server. We call it /var/www/rreportgenerator
#suppose www-data is the user running the web server
sudo su - www-data
cd /var/www
mv rreportgenerator rreportgenerator.OLD
mkdir rreportgenerator
cd rreportgenerator
wget -O rrg.tcl "http://lbgi.igbmc.fr/rreportgenerator/rrg.distrib"
# please notice the '.distrib' extension (it's the stable version)
- rrg.tcl, index.html and the logos (with your LocalLogo.png) have to be in that directory (if not in the same directory you can use unix links to simulate it)
- the sub directory called Web contains the scenarios, input and ouput files for all projects. (use links if they are elsewhere)
We can now use the url http://http_server/rreportgenerator/rrg.tcl
If this is done you can even use the url http://http_server/rreportgenerator
- To allow the execution of the rrg.tcl as cgi-bin you need following line in the apache configuration file
ScriptAliasMatch ^/rreportgenerator/rrg.tcl /real/path/to/the/directory/rreportgenerator/rrg.tcl
- Notice : to allow the url http://http_server/rreportgenerator
- do it in the apache configuration or ...
- use the file index.html in rreportgenerator with the redirection to rrg.tcl
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=./rrg.tcl?commande=WebForm"> </head> </html>
Write permissions
For the Web version
The user running the http server needs to have write permissions to
- /var/www/rreportgenerator/Web where he creates
- /var/www/rreportgenerator/Web/web.log
- /var/www/rreportgenerator/Web/RRGDataForWeb containing the temporary files and RRG_config (can be modified)
- /var/www/rreportgenerator/Web/ProjectX created when the user creates a new project ProjectX
For the standalone version
When a user runs rrg.tcl he creates
- ~user/RRGConfiguration containing RRG_config and the temporary files
- the Output files in the directory defined as Output Folder
How it works
The main tcl program rrg_main.tcl (mostly code by Luc Moulinier) remains nearly unchanged. We replaced the call to 'main' with following lines :
global env
if {! [info exists env(QUERY_STRING)] && $argv=={}} {
package require Tk
main
} else {
source "[file dirname [info script]]/rrg_web.tcl"
MainWeb
}
- If launched as local program, rrg_main.tcl requires the package Tk and runs normally
- If launched by the web server, rrg.tcl sources the additional file rrg_web.tcl (code written by Raymond Ripp) and sends a html page to the web browser.
- Any action from the user through his web browser will rerun rrg.tcl, the arguments are always transfered within the web page and users queries, avoiding use of session variables.
- The user can switch between existing projects (if he knows the password) or create a new project.
- Within a project he can select, delete or create scenarios and input files.
- After selection of a scenario and input file the user can run RReportGenarator. This lauches the normal rrg.tcl from Luc and stores the result in the OutputDir of the project.
- These output files can be shown, downloaded and deleted by any user knowing the password of the project.
