R API Reference

In This Topic

Package: mtbr
Converting from a Minitab date format to an R date format
Errors from combined character sets on Microsoft® Windows

To accomplish R integration with Minitab Statistical Software, Minitab, LLC provides the mtbr package. The following descriptions of the functions from the mtbr package prepare you to write R code that integrates with Minitab.

For information on how to install Minitab's R package and how to run R from Minitab, go to Installing R to use with Minitab Statistical Software.

For more information on R, consult the guidance available at www.r-project.org.

Package: mtbr

`mtb_get_column`

Retrieves a column from a Minitab worksheet to use in R.

name: character: Specifies the column to retrieve. You can specify either the column number (for example, "C1") or the column name (for example, "My Column").

Return value

Returns the column of data from the active worksheet as an R atomic vector. The atomic vector can contain character or numeric values.

Example

library(mtbr)

column1 <- mtb_get_column("C1")
column2 <- mtb_get_column("My Column")

`mtb_get_constant`

Retrieves a constant from a Minitab worksheet to use in R.

name: character: Specifies the constant to retrieve. You can specify either the constant number (for example, "K1") or the constant name (for example, "My Constant").

Return value

Returns a constant that can be a character or numeric value.

Example

library(mtbr)

constant1 <- mtb_get_constant("K1")
constant2 <- mtb_get_constant("My Constant")

`mtb_get_matrix`

Retrieves a matrix from a Minitab worksheet to use in R.

name: character: Specifies the matrix to retrieve. You can specify either the matrix number (for example, "M1") or the matrix name (for example, "My Matrix").

Return value

Returns the data from the matrix as an R matrix.

Example

library(mtbr)

matrix1 <- mtb_get_matrix("M1")
matrix2 <- mtb_get_matrix("My Matrix")

`mtb_add_message`

Appends a message to the Minitab Output pane.

message: character: Specifies the message to display.

Return value

Null

Example

library(mtbr)

mtb_add_message("This is a message.")

`mtb_set_note`

Sets a note at the top of the Minitab Output pane.

note: character: Specifies the text to display.

Return value

Null

Example

library(mtbr)

mtb_set_note("The output contains one note.")

`mtb_set_title`

Sets the title at the top of the Minitab Output pane.

title: character: Specifies the text to display.

Return value

Null

Example

library(mtbr)

mtb_set_title("The output contains one title.")

`mtb_add_image`

Appends an image to the Minitab Output pane when you have a supported image file.

filename: character: Specifies the path to the image.

Return value

Null

Example

library(mtbr)

png("histogram.png")
hist(airquality$Temp)
dev.off() 
mtb_add_image("histogram.png")

`mtb_add_image_bytes`

Appends an image to the Minitab Output pane when you have a bytes object.

image_bytes: raw vector: Specifies the bytes of data for an image. For example, you can enter a raw vector as the parameter.

Return value

Null

Example

library(mtbr)

image_data <- as.raw(c(0x89, 0x50, 0x4e, 0x47, 0x0d, 0x0a, 0x1a,
                       0x0a, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x0d, 0x49, 0x48,
                       0x44, 0x52, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x09, 0x00,
                       0x00, 0x00, 0x09, 0x08, 0x02, 0x00, 0x00,
                       0x00, 0x6f, 0xf3, 0x91, 0x47, 0x00, 0x00,
                       0x00, 0x01, 0x73, 0x52, 0x47, 0x42, 0x00,
                       0xae, 0xce, 0x1c, 0xe9, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,
                       0x04, 0x67, 0x41, 0x4d, 0x41, 0x00, 0x00,
                       0xb1, 0x8f, 0x0b, 0xfc, 0x61, 0x05, 0x00,
                       0x00, 0x00, 0x09, 0x70, 0x48, 0x59, 0x73,
                       0x00, 0x00, 0x16, 0x25, 0x00, 0x00, 0x16,
                       0x25, 0x01, 0x49, 0x52, 0x24, 0xf0, 0x00,
                       0x00, 0x00, 0x22, 0x49, 0x44, 0x41, 0x54,
                       0x18, 0x57, 0x63, 0xd8, 0x61, 0xbb, 0x8b,
                       0x81, 0x01, 0x27, 0x49, 0xba, 0x04, 0x01,
                       0x69, 0x9c, 0x12, 0x04, 0xa4, 0x71, 0x4a,
                       0x10, 0x90, 0xc6, 0x29, 0xb1, 0xc3, 0x76,
                       0x17, 0x00, 0xfc, 0x0b, 0x45, 0x08, 0x6f,
                       0x2c, 0xff, 0xe2, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,
                       0x49, 0x45, 0x4e, 0x44, 0xae, 0x42, 0x60,
                       0x82))
mtb_add_image_bytes(image_data)

`mtb_add_table`

Appends a table to the Minitab Output pane.

columns: data.frame or list of atomic vectors: Specifies the columns of data for the table as a list of atomic vectors or as a data.frame.
headers: character vector (Optional): Specifies the column headers for the table. The default headers is an empty character vector.
title: character (Optional): Specifies the title for the table. The default title is "".
footnote: character (Optional): Specifies the footnote under the table. The default footnote is "".

Return value

Null

Example

library(mtbr)

mytitle <- "Air Quality Data"
myheaders <- names(airquality)
mycolumns <- airquality
myfootnote <- gsub("\"", "", paste0(capture.output(summary(airquality)[4,]), collapse = "\n"))
mtb_add_table(columns=mycolumns, headers=myheaders, title=mytitle, footnote=myfootnote)

Converting from a Minitab date format to an R date format

By default, Minitab uses a different datetime format than R. To convert from the Minitab datetime format to the Unix datetime format, use the excel_numeric_to_date() function from the janitor R package.

Errors from combined character sets on Microsoft® Windows

R on Microsoft® Windows cannot always process strings that have characters from different character sets. For example, if Microsoft® Windows uses the Japanese (Shift-JIS) character set and a string includes characters from the Chinese (GBK) character set, some strings will not be processed correctly.

Because of this limitation, one possible solution is that strings use characters from the same character set as the Microsoft® Windows display language.