make: Run R Script if Needed

In TAF: Transparent Assessment Framework for Reproducible Research

Run R Script if Needed

Description

Run an R script if underlying files have changed, otherwise do nothing.

Usage

make(recipe, prereq, target, include = TRUE, engine = source,
  details = FALSE, force = FALSE, recon = FALSE, quiet = TRUE, ...)

Arguments

recipe	script filename.
prereq	one or more files required by the script. For example, data files, scripts, or NULL.
target	one or more output files produced by the script. Directory names can also be used.
include	whether to automatically include the script itself as a prerequisite file. This means that if the script file has been modified, it should be run.
engine	function to source the script.
details	whether to show a diagnostic table of files and time last modified.
force	whether to run the R script unconditionally.
recon	whether to return TRUE or FALSE, without actually running the R script.
quiet	whether to suppress messages.
...	passed to engine.

Details

A make() call has the general form

make("analysis.R", "input.dat", "output.dat")

which can be read aloud as:

“script x uses y to produce z”

Value

TRUE or FALSE, indicating whether the script was run.

Note

This function provides functionality similar to makefile rules, to determine whether a script should be (re)run or not.

If any target is either missing or is older than any prereq, then the script is run.

References

Stallman, R. M. et al. An introduction to makefiles. Chapter 2 in the GNU Make manual.

See Also

source runs any R script, source.taf is more convenient for running a TAF script, and source.all runs all TAF scripts.

make, make.taf, and make.all are similar to the source functions, except they avoid repeating tasks that have already been run.

TAF-package gives an overview of the package.

The makeit package provides a similar make function, along with a vignette containing annotated examples and a discussion.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Here, model.R uses input.dat, creating results.dat
make("model.R", "data/input.dat", "model/results.dat")
make("model.R", "data/input.dat", "model/results.dat", quiet=FALSE)
make("model.R", "data/input.dat", "model/results.dat", details=TRUE)

## End(Not run)

TAF documentation built on Nov. 5, 2025, 7:21 p.m.