Mystery solved - thanks for reminding me about PPID!
Turns out that all the "other" R processes derive from BBedit, which is understandable since I have some BBedit plugins to allow executing R from that editor.

regards,
Carl


On 11/27/24 7:07 PM, Simon Urbanek wrote:
Carl,

R itself is just a single process. However, there are plenty of ways to have 
multiple R processes running on your system.

The "parallel" package provides various ways in which you can start more 
parallel R processes for parallel computing. Those will typically appear without a logo.  
Even if you didn’t use it directly, some packages you used may have done so without 
telling you. If they don’t clean up after themselves properly, that may leave those stray 
processes around (but typically only until you close your R session).

The other way to get processes without a logo is to start them from the command line. 
They are not necessarily related - one way to find they are is to use let’s say "ps 
xl" and look at the parent process ID (PPID) -  if the PPID is the same as another 
R’s PID then the latter is the parent of the former and likely spawned it. If not, then 
it has been started separately.

R itself will start additional R processes in some situations: the most common 
is for package installation since that involves calling R CMD INSTALL which 
means creating yet another R process.

As a side note: if you run R from the console (Terminal) then it will be 
without an icond until you use R graphics (Quartz) at which point R registers 
itself as an application so it can show the Quartz window, thus macOS will then 
show it with an icon (typically of the parent program so, e.g. Terminal).

Cheers,
Simon



On 28 Nov 2024, at 12:00, Carl Witthoft <c...@witthoft.com> wrote:

"I Never Looked"  category!  I was checking the Activity Monitor and noticed that, in addition to a process 
called "R" which displays the R logo , I have six other processes called "R" with just a plain 
capital "R" .
These others all have newer PIDs than the "main" R.  One of them appears to be 
idling with a bit of CPU usage while all others, including the 'main' one, are at zero 
CPU (I'm using Rgui.app and at the moment not running any command).

Do these other processes matter? Are they leftovers?

thanks
Carl
--
Carl Witthoft
personal: c...@witthoft.com
The Witthoft Group, Consulting
https://witthoftgroup.weebly.com/

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--
Carl Witthoft
personal: c...@witthoft.com
The Witthoft Group, Consulting
https://witthoftgroup.weebly.com/

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