rxp_r: Create a Nix Expression Running an R Function

In rixpress: Build Reproducible Analytical Pipelines with 'Nix'

Create a Nix Expression Running an R Function

Description

Create a Nix Expression Running an R Function

Usage

rxp_r(
  name,
  expr,
  additional_files = "",
  user_functions = "",
  nix_env = "default.nix",
  encoder = NULL,
  decoder = NULL,
  env_var = NULL,
  noop_build = FALSE
)

Arguments

name	Symbol, name of the derivation.
expr	R code to generate the expression. Ideally it should be a call to a pure function, or a piped expression. Multi-line expressions are not supported.
additional_files	Character vector, additional files to include during the build process. For example, if a function expects a certain file to be available, this is where you should include it.
user_functions	Character vector, user-defined functions to include. This should be a script (or scripts) containing user-defined functions to include during the build process for this derivation. It is recommended to use one script per function, and only include the required script(s) in the derivation.
nix_env	Character, path to the Nix environment file, default is "default.nix".
encoder	Function or character defaults to NULL. A function used to encode (serialize) objects for transfer between derivations. It must accept two arguments: the object to encode (first), and the target file path (second). If your function has a different signature, wrap it to match this interface. By default, saveRDS() is used, but this may yield unexpected results, especially for complex objects like machine learning models. For instance, for {keras} models, use keras::save_model_hdf5() to capture the full model (architecture, weights, training config, optimiser state, etc.). See vignette("encoding-decoding") for more details.
decoder	Function, character, or named vector/list, defaults to NULL. Can be: A single function/string to decode (unserialize) all upstream objects (e.g., readRDS) A named vector/list where names are upstream dependency names and values are their specific decoding functions (e.g., c(mtcars_tail = "qs::qread", mtcars_head = "read.csv")) By default, readRDS() is used. See vignette("encoding-decoding") for more details.
env_var	Character vector, defaults to NULL. A named vector of environment variables to set before running the R script, e.g., ⁠c("CMDSTAN" = "${defaultPkgs.cmdstan}/opt/cmdstan)"⁠. Each entry will be added as an export statement in the build phase.
noop_build	Logical, defaults to FALSE. If TRUE, the derivation produces a no-op build (a stub output with no actual build steps). Any downstream derivations depending on a no-op build will themselves also become no-op builds.

Details

At a basic level, rxp_r(mtcars_am, filter(mtcars, am == 1)) is equivalent to mtcars_am <- filter(mtcars, am == 1). rxp_r() generates the required Nix boilerplate to output a so-called "derivation" in Nix jargon. A Nix derivation is a recipe that defines how to create an output (in this case mtcars_am) including its dependencies, build steps, and output paths.

Value

An object of class derivation which inherits from lists.

See Also

Other derivations: rxp_jl(), rxp_jl_file(), rxp_py(), rxp_py_file(), rxp_qmd(), rxp_r_file(), rxp_rmd()

Examples

## Not run: 
  # Basic usage
  rxp_r(name = filtered_mtcars, expr = filter(mtcars, am == 1))

  # Skip building this derivation
  rxp_r(
    name = turtles,
    expr = occurrence(species, geometry = atlantic),
    noop_build = TRUE
  )

  # Serialize object using qs
  rxp_r(
   name = filtered_mtcars,
   expr = filter(mtcars, am == 1),
   encoder = qs::qsave
  )
  # Unerialize using qs::qread in the next derivation
  rxp_r(
   name = mtcars_mpg,
   expr = select(filtered_mtcars, mpg),
   decoder = qs::qread
  )

## End(Not run)

rixpress documentation built on Feb. 19, 2026, 9:06 a.m.