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Summary: Provide a new package that accesses a NoSQL database
Description: So-called NoSQL databases such as
are becoming increasingly popular. They generally provide very efficient lookup of key/value pairs. Some other projects build on top of these, see e.g. Flare which extends TokyoCabinet.
Beyond a sample interface package, it would be desirable to think about a generic interface similar to what the DBI package does for SQL backends.
A related package is provided by RBerkeley even though the underlying BerkeleyDB is not typically listed as a part of the ‘NoSQL Club’ but can arguably be considered an ancestor.
Also of note may be RProtoBuf which provides an interface to the efficient and language-agnostic Protocol Buffers.
Update on 2010/03/18: A new package rredis for Redis is now on CRAN.
Update on 2010/04/29: The package R4CouchDB for CouchDB is at Github.
Skills required: C/C++ and R programming skills coupled with sufficient administrative skills to set some test servers up. Familiarity with a common Linux distribution may help to take advantage of pre-built backends. The Rcpp package may be helpful for C++ interfaces.
Test: Ideally a basic proof of concept of an R function calling the underlying API to store and/or retrieve data. This meant to provide a proof of competence for working with these technologies.
Mentor: Dirk Eddelbuettel (who has a preference for C++ implementations). Added 2010-02-24.