Where to place the R code for R+Sweave+LaTeX workflow
- by claytontstanley
I spent the last week learning 3 new tools: R, Sweave, and LaTeX. One question that came to my mind though when working through my first project: Where do I place the majority of the R code?
The tutorials that I read online placed the majority of the R code in the LaTeX .Rnw file. However, I find having a bunch of R calculations in the LaTeX file distracting. What I do find extremely helpful (of course) is to call out to R code in the LaTeX file and embed the result.
So the workflow I've been using is to place 99% of my R code in my .R file. I run that file first, save a bunch of calculations as objects, and output the .Rout file once finished (to save the work). Then when running Sweave, I load up that .Rout file, so that I have the majority of my calculations already completed and in the Sweave R session.
Then my LaTeX callouts to R are quite simple: Just give me the XTable stored in 'res.table', or give me the result of an already-computed calculation stored in the variable 'res'.
So I push towards the minimal amount of R code in the LaTex file possible, to achieve the desired result (embedding stats results in the LaTeX writeup).
Does anyone have any experience with this approach? I'm just worried I might run into trouble further down the line, when I start really trying to load up and leverage this workflow.
