The 'r' (aka 'littler') program provides a leightweight binary wrapper around the GNU R language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. . While R can be used in batch mode, the r binary adds full support for both 'shebang'-style scripting (i.e. using a hashmark-exclamation-path expression as the first line in scripts) as well as command-line use in standard Unix pipelines. In other words, r provides the R language without the environment.