yaml_exec: Execute all agent and informant YAML tasks

In pointblank: Data Validation and Organization of Metadata for Local and Remote Tables

Execute all agent and informant YAML tasks

Description

The yaml_exec() function takes all relevant pointblank YAML files in a directory and executes them. Execution involves interrogation of agents for YAML agents and incorporation of informants for YAML informants. Under the hood, this uses yaml_agent_interrogate() and yaml_informant_incorporate() and then x_write_disk() to save the processed objects to an output directory. These written artifacts can be read in at any later time with the x_read_disk() function or the read_disk_multiagent() function. This is useful when data in the target tables are changing and the periodic testing of such tables is part of a data quality monitoring plan.

The output RDS files are named according to the object type processed, the target table, and the date-time of processing. For convenience and modularity, this setup is ideal when a table store YAML file (typically named "tbl_store.yml" and produced via the tbl_store() and yaml_write() workflow) is available in the directory, and when table-prep formulas are accessed by name through tbl_source().

A typical directory of files set up for execution in this way might have the following contents:

• a "tbl_store.yml" file for holding table-prep formulas (created with tbl_store() and written to YAML with yaml_write())

• one or more YAML agent files to validate tables (ideally using tbl_source())

• one or more YAML informant files to provide refreshed metadata on tables (again, using tbl_source() to reference table preparations is ideal)

• an output folder (default is "output") to save serialized versions of processed agents and informants

Minimal example files of the aforementioned types can be found in the pointblank package through the following system.file() calls:

• system.file("yaml", "agent-small_table.yml", package = "pointblank")

• system.file("yaml", "informant-small_table.yml", package = "pointblank")

• system.file("yaml", "tbl_store.yml", package = "pointblank")

The directory itself can be accessed using system.file("yaml", package = "pointblank").

Usage

yaml_exec(
  path = NULL,
  files = NULL,
  write_to_disk = TRUE,
  output_path = file.path(path, "output"),
  keep_tbl = FALSE,
  keep_extracts = FALSE
)

Arguments

path	The path that contains the YAML files for agents and informants.
files	A vector of YAML files to use in the execution workflow. By default, yaml_exec() will attempt to process every valid YAML file in path but supplying a vector here limits the scope to the specified files.
write_to_disk	Should the execution workflow include a step that writes output files to disk? This internally calls x_write_disk() to write RDS files and uses the base filename of the agent/informant YAML file as part of the output filename, appending the date-time to the basename.
output_path	The output path for any generated output files. By default, this will be a subdirectory of the provided path called "output".
keep_tbl, keep_extracts	For agents, the table may be kept if it is a data frame object (databases tables will never be pulled for storage) and extracts, collections of table rows that failed a validation step, may also be stored. By default, both of these options are set to FALSE.

Value

Invisibly returns a named vector of file paths for the input files that were processed; file output paths (for wherever writing occurred) are given as the names.

Function ID

11-8

See Also

Other pointblank YAML: yaml_agent_interrogate(), yaml_agent_show_exprs(), yaml_agent_string(), yaml_informant_incorporate(), yaml_read_agent(), yaml_read_informant(), yaml_write()

Examples

if (interactive()) {

# The 'yaml' directory that is
# accessible in the package through
# `system.file()` contains the files
# 1. `agent-small_table.yml`
# 2. `informant-small_table.yml`
# 3. `tbl_store.yml`

# There are references in YAML files
# 1 & 2 to the table store YAML file,
# so, they all work together cohesively

# Let's process the agent and the
# informant YAML files with `yaml_exec()`;
# and we'll specify the working directory
# as the place where the output RDS files
# are written

output_dir <- getwd()

yaml_exec(
  path = system.file(
    "yaml", package = "pointblank"
  ),
  output = output_dir
)

# This generates two RDS files in the
# working directory: one for the agent
# and the other for the informant; each
# of them are automatically time-stamped
# so that periodic execution can be
# safely carried out without risk of
# overwriting 

}

pointblank documentation built on April 25, 2023, 5:06 p.m.