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Julien Jamme edited this page Mar 2, 2022 · 16 revisions

Supported OSs?

Mu- and tau-Argus are developed on a Windows machine. With each release a Windows version is provided in binary format. At the moment, we do not have enough Linux expertise in our team to compile Linux binaries.

sdcMicro and sdcTable are R-packages and thus can be used under any OS that supports R.

How can I call tau-Argus from SAS?

If you use version 4.1.0 (or higher) of tau-Argus you can call tau-Argus with the help of a batch file as follows:

%macro call_tauargus(path_tau_exe, path_java_exe, path_arb, path_tauargus_log);  
    data _NULL_;  
        path = "cd &path_tau_exe.";  
        argus = " ""&path_java_exe.java.exe"" -jar
                ""&path_tau_exe.TauArgus.exe""  
                ""&path_arb..arb""    
                ""&path_tauargus_log..txt"" ";  
        call system (path);    
        call system (argus);       
    run;        
%mend call_tauargus;

%call_tauargus(%str(C:\Program Files %(x86%)\TauArgus\),    
	       %str(C:\Program Files %(x86%)\Java\jre7\bin\),   
	       %str(C:\Temp\test_batch),   
	       %str(C:\Temp\test_log));

The four arguments of %call_tauargus() are just examples and have to be adapted to your own settings before you call the little macro above. In the order listed above they describe where to find the tau-Argus version, the Java version, the name of the batch file and the name of the log file.

How can I call tau-Argus from R?

With sdcTable package

At least version 0.22.4 of sdcTable is required. Function createArgusInput() allows to create batch-files suitable as input for tauArgus while runArgusBatchFile() can be used to run a batch-file directly from R. For detailed instructions, have a look at the corresponding help-pages in sdcTable.

With rtauargus package

The rtauargus package's purpose is to interface R and tau-Argus. To run tau-Argus, you have to follow three steps :

  1. prepare data and metadata files :

With microdata, you can use the micro_asc_rda() function which will build .asc and .rda files required by tau-Argus. In the future version, with tabular data, you will be able to use the tab_rda() function which will build .tab and .rda files required by tau-Argus.

  1. build a batch file :

With microdata, you can use the micro_arb() function which will build a .arb file, so a batch file required by tau-Argus. In the future version, with tabular data, you will be able to use the tab_arb() function which will build the .arb file adapted for tabular data and required by tau-Argus.

  1. run a tau-Argus batch file from R :

The run_arb() function let you run a tau-Argus batch file from R, built at the previous step.

With your own script

The minimal code to call tau-Argus from R is the following :

tauargus_exe <- "complete_path_to_tauargus_software/TauArgus.exe"
arb_filename <- "complete_path_to_your_batch_file/batch_file.arb"

arb_full <- normalizePath(arb_filename)
tau_full <- normalizePath(tauargus_exe)

command <- paste0(
  '"',
  tau_full,
  '" "',
  arb_full,
  '"'
)

system(command)

How should the paths look like in tau-Argus?

Paths used by tau-Argus should not contain non-standard ASCII characters. I.e., accented characters or greek symbols are not allowed.

Why does Output -> Write Batch File... reproduce not all details in tau-Argus?

By using the tau-Argus own function Write Batch File you should only get an idea how the proper batch file could look like. Only the standard parameters are represented this way. If you want to set more paramters, you have to write them in the batch file manually. For detailed instructions please have a look in the latest manual TauManualV4.1.

Why do I get no results when using protected cells in tau-Argus?

Sometimes optimization problems become infeasible as soon as you change the suppression status from safe (S) to protected (P). In the little example below the value 10 in the last row should be unsafe (U). As long as all other cells are set to S, the problem is feasible. But if e.g. the marginal cells are set to P, there doesn't exist a solution any longer, because there is no secondary suppression for the 20 in the last column.

100 | 50 40 20  
--------------  
 40 | 20 20 --  
 40 | 20 20 --
 30 | 10 -- 20

Be aware that in this case the tau-Argus-window might close without an error-message!

How to make a proper Bugreport?

Report any issues on the issues page.

Please specify which version of which tool you have been using.

Please add a minimal example that reproduces your bug. If you add data, please note that the issues page is public, i.e. everybody can see the data...

How can I contribute?

There are several ways to contribute to the development of the SDC tools:

Clone this wiki locally