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R compatibility with eikon api

Two clients are telling me that R is not working with Eikon APIs. Is there an minimun version of R to use the APIs?

The message they are receving is:

"Warning in install.packages :

package ‘eikonapir’ is not available (for R version 3.4.4)"

eikoneikon-data-apipythonworkspacerefinitiv-dataplatform-eikonworkspace-data-apiapireikon-data-api-r
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@daniel.fernandez it is not an official package and can only be installed with `install_github` from the devtools.

Have a look at these instructions.

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Is there a plan for an R package? There is a big community working with R and the equivalent Bloomberg R package is phenomenal. The only thing (missing R support) is what makes it more difficult to switch to EIKON...

@aris.ioannidis not at the moment, as the community supported library is quite good and has all of the functionality of the official python package. I will raise this with the product manager though.

@aris.ioannidis
There's an R package implementing Eikon Data APIs ready available.
https://github.com/ahmedmohamedali/eikonapir
I'm not sure I understand your question, given that it comes as a comment on the thread that discusses the very package you're asking for.

Alex, I meant officially supported package (from Thomson Reuters). In a business environment we need to rely on packages that are officially supported. I was aware of the eikonapir package. But imagine something happens and I cannot run analysis on large portfolios because there is no support... I hope you get what I mean.

@Zhenya Kovalyov

Yes, this is the link we are using to install. Are we releasing any official package shortly?

Zhenya Kovalyov avatar image Zhenya Kovalyov daniel.fernandez1@refinitiv.com

@daniel.fernandez the output that you pasted in the original post does not correspond with the instructions, the error message comes from `install.packages()`:

here is the correct installation procedure:

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@aris.ioannidis
Thanks for the clarification. I think I understand your concern now. And I don't think there's any ground for it. We do support data retrieval from Eikon using Eikon Data APIs, whether you use R or any other development environment. If you have a problem retrieving data from Eikon you can follow normal support channels (e.g. contact Refinitiv Helpdesk), and we will investigate the problem and work with you to fix it or work around it. Customer support is part of the service you subscribe to. And in all likelihood the problem you're experiencing is not within the R library, but elsewhere. In my view the fact that the R package is not official is rather inconsequential for what you're concerned with. It means that we're not committing to provide timely enhancements or bug fixes for this package. The reality is that for the official packages where we are committed to provide timely enhancements and bug fixes, it may take days, weeks or sometimes even months for bug fixes and especially for enhancements to become available. With community owned open source project you have an opportunity to produce a bug fix or an enhancement independently of the vendor and either keep the enhanced version for your own private use or contribute it back to the community. I find that for development environments that are inherently built on and primarily depend on open source community owned software like Python or R the "official" stamp on a package is a bit of an oxymoron, especially when it comes to support. Who supports dplyr, lubridate or ggplot2, or most other "official" packages you install from CRAN and use to the extent that you cannot live without them?

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Alex, I agree only with some of your comments:

1) For businesses, an "official" package from Thomson Reuters would always be preferred from an "unofficial" one. Please note, I am not joking here... When people manage a lot of money they want to be sure that things have been tested etc.

2) The eikonapir package is not even in the "official" CRAN repository (last time I checked). People have to install it from github. dplyr, ggplot etc. have a massive user base (compared to eikonapir) with loads of questions and answers in StackOverflow or other places, so you can't really compare the 2 atm.

3) You wrote "It means that we're not committing to provide timely enhancements or bug fixes for this package.". That is exactly my point. I would expect (given the huge base of R users in the financial industry) TR to officially support a package for R. You do it for Python, why not for R?

I am not arguing in favour of one or the other language here. I think both Python and R should be supported. The only thing I am doing is to express my interest to you guys so that your product managers think about it for future development. My point is really about the financial professionals feeling a bit more comfortable and be able to use your products more.

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