SQLite : a database for actuarial work

While searching for an alternative to the limit of 2 gigabytes of Microsoft Access, I found SQLite (http://www.sqlite.org/) a small software library (350KB) in C without external dependencies that implements a SQL database engine.

The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and supports multi platform databases up to 2 terabytes.

The simplicity of SQLite is comes from acting directly on a single file (a database) on the hard disk, not requiring installation, configuration or administration. Performing a backup boils down to copy the file to another location.

Another added advantage is its direct connection to the R (http://www.r-project.org) using the RSQLite library.

An R script template

This is the my current way of starting a new R script.

The main purpose of this template is to reduce the human intervention in running the R script in another computer.

So it goes through the following steps:

• work folder creation
• folder tree creation
• install and load needed packages