This is a great alternative on building web services that display chart/graph images rendered in PNG.

hello.php

<?php
// Use R to generate the graph and store it to "/tmp" directory
exec("Rscript /path/to/hello.r");

// Use PHP to display the generated graph
header('Content-Type: image/jpg');
$im = imagecreatefromjpeg('/tmp/rplot.jpg');
imagejpeg($im);
imagedestroy($im);
?>

hello.r

jpeg('/tmp/rplot.jpg')
cars <- c(1, 3, 6, 4, 9)
plot(cars)

MARKDOWN.md

Generating graph/chart using R and PHP

Google Image Charts API is dead! This is a great alternative on building web services that display chart/graph images rendered in PNG.

Files

• hello.r - generates the graph
• hello.php - displays the graph
• rplot.jpg - temporary file output that gets generated by R of which later is read by PHP

Instructions

1. Open your web browser; and
2. In the address bar, visit to http://localhost/path/to/hello.php
3. It should display the look of the graph/chart