clix

Installation

You can install the development version of clix from GitHub with:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("rappster/clix")

What?

A custom CLI implementation that bundles

• messages (in the broader sense)
• querying for user input
• executing the implications of a given user input

Why?

When developing a new package I often find myself developing the “same little CLI helpers” (a mix of messages, user input and implications of that input) over and over again.

So this is primarily just a means of “DRY” for my own work.

But of course I also hope it’s useful for someone else out there.

How?

The main functions all start with ask_*().

These bundle

• messages (in the broader sense)
• querying for user input
• executing the implications of a given user input

I felt like even with superb CLI tooling such as {cli} those out-of-the-box bundles are typically still missing - or I just didn’t find them yet 😉

Currently, there’s only on of these implemented yet: ask_dir_create()

Simple example

I often run into situations where I might expect a directory to already exist (because I might have created it while developing something). However, in “clean start” scenarios (which might be the case when using your package in production context) this might not be the case.

So here’s a CLI-based way to handle such situations.

Let’s create a temporary directory first.

path <- fs::path(tempdir(), "a/b/c")

Then we’ll load the package

library(clix)

Directory does not exist yet

path <- ask_dir_create(dir = path)
# ── Directory check ──────────────────────────────────────────
# Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# does not exist yet.
# 
# Do you want to create it?
# 
# Answering Yes implies the following:
# • Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# will be created
# 
# 
# 1: Yes
# 2: No
# 3: Let me start over
# 4: Exit

Answer with 1: Yes

# Selection: 1
# ✓ Directory /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c created.

path %>% fs::dir_exists()

Directory already exists

ask_dir_create(dir = path)
# Directory /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/RtmpnxbKca/a/b/c already
# exists.
# 
# 
# 1: Keep
# 2: Reset
# 3: Let me start over
# 4: Exit

You can reset an existing directory to its “original state” in the sense that the all subdirectories (but not the directory itself) are deleted by answering with 2: Reset

Directory does not exist yet and you want to keep it that way

Let’s make sure the temp dir is deleted again before moving on

path %>% fs::dir_delete()

Answer with 2: No

ask_dir_create(dir = path)
# ── Directory check ──────────────────────────────────────────
# Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# does not exist yet.
# 
# Do you want to create it?
# 
# Answering Yes implies the following:
# • Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# will be created
# 
# 
# 1: Yes
# 2: No
# 3: Let me start over
# 4: Exit

# Selection: 2
# ! Directory '/var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c' was not created
# Warning message:
# In throw_warning(., .console = TRUE) :
#   Directory '/var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c' was not created

Answer with 3: Let me start over

ask_dir_create(dir = path)
# ── Directory check ──────────────────────────────────────────
# Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# does not exist yet.
# 
# Do you want to create it?
# 
# Answering Yes implies the following:
# • Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# will be created
# 
# 
# 1: Yes
# 2: No
# 3: Let me start over
# 4: Exit

# Selection: 3
# Starting over...
#  
# 1: Yes
# 2: No
# 3: Let me start over
# 4: Exit

Answer with “Exit” (input = 4)

ask_dir_create(dir = path)
# ── Directory check ──────────────────────────────────────────
# Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# does not exist yet.
# 
# Do you want to create it?
# 
# Answering Yes implies the following:
# • Directory
# /var/folders/r1/_3hsv89s6rq2vl9nm31jjk700000gn/T/Rtmpyl8rUK/a/b/c
# will be created
# 
# 
# 1: Yes
# 2: No
# 3: Let me start over
# 4: Exit

# Selection: 4
# Exiting