Extract objects from a list

When using Rmpi to send processes to many nodes, it is convenient to create a list of tasks that are assigned to nodes as they become available. In my case, I was working through a large factorial set of simulations and needed to use a unique set of variable values for each task. Rather than assign these variables individually within the slave function, I decided to extract the variables directly from the list using a variation of the following code:

mylist=(list(a=1,b=2,c="string1",d=list("r"=2,"z"="string2")))

for(i in 1:length(mylist)){
  ##first extract the object value
  tempobj=mylist[[i]]
  ##now create a new variable with the original name of the list item
  eval(parse(text=paste(names(mylist)[[i]],"= tempobj")))
}

> print(a)
[1] 1
> print(b)
[1] 2
> print(c)
[1] "string1"
> print(d)
$r
[1] 2

$z
[1] "string2"

If there is a more elegant way to do this, please let me know in the comments.

Parallel computing in R

Lately I have been running R in parallel on a Beowulf cluster using the Rmpi package. Instrumental in my ability to do this were two excellent tutorials:

The Division of Biostatistics at UCSF provides some of the background required to get things running on the Linux side of things. (Note: sometimes the url for this site comes up with an extra "biostat" in the address -- just delete that and the page should load.

The Acadia Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computation has a variety of sample scripts to point you in the right direction. Once you read through the code, it becomes very easy to set up a template you can re-use in the future.