R: Find or run an external executable file

locateExecutable {tractor.base} | R Documentation

## Find or run an external executable file

### Description

The `execute` function is a wrapper around the `system2` function in base, which additionally echoes the command being run (including the full path to the executable) if the reportr output level is `Debug`. `locateExecutable` simply returns the path to an executable file on the system `PATH`.

### Usage

    locateExecutable(fileName, errorIfMissing = TRUE)

    execute(executable, params = NULL, errorOnFail = TRUE, silent = FALSE,
      ...)

### Arguments

`executable, fileName` | Name of the executable to run.
`params` | A character vector giving the parameters to pass to the executable, if any. Elements will be separated by a space.
`errorOnFail, errorIfMissing` | Logical value: should an error be produced if the executable can't be found?
`silent` | Logical value: should the executable be run without any output?
`...` | Additional arguments to `system`.

### Value

For `execute`, the return value of the underlying call to `system2`. For `locateExecutable`, the location of the requested executable, or `NULL` if it could not be found.

### Note

These functions are designed for Unix systems and may not work on Windows.

### Author(s)

Jon Clayden

### References

Please cite the following reference when using TractoR in your work:

J.D. Clayden, S. Muñoz Maniega, A.J. Storkey, M.D. King, M.E. Bastin & C.A. Clark (2011). TractoR: Magnetic resonance imaging and tractography with R. Journal of Statistical Software 44(8):1-18. http://www.jstatsoft.org/v44/i08/.

### See Also

`system2`

[Package tractor.base version 3.2.2 Index]