rRule: Rule for running R scripts

In rmake: Makefile Generator for R Analytical Projects

Rule for running R scripts

Description

This rule executes R scripts to create various file outputs.

Usage

rRule(
  target,
  script,
  depends = NULL,
  params = list(),
  task = "all",
  preBuild = NULL,
  postBuild = NULL
)

Arguments

target	Name of output files to be created
script	Name of the R script to be executed
depends	A vector of file names that the R script depends on, or NULL.
params	A list of R values that become available within the script in a params variable.
task	A character vector of parent task names. The mechanism of tasks allows grouping rules. Anything different from 'all' will cause the creation of a new task depending on the given rule. Executing ⁠make taskname⁠ will then force building this rule.
preBuild	A character vector of shell commands to be executed before building the target
postBuild	A character vector of shell commands to be executed after building the target

Details

In detail, this rule executes the following command in a separate R process: ⁠params <- params; source(script)⁠

That is, the parameters given in the params argument are stored in the global variable and then the script is sourced. Note that the re-generation of the Makefile with any change to params will not cause the re-execution of the recipe unless other script dependencies change.

Issuing ⁠make clean⁠ from the shell causes removal of all files specified in the target parameter.

Value

Instance of S3 class rmake.rule

Author(s)

Michal Burda

See Also

rule(), makefile(), markdownRule()

Examples

r <- rRule(target='cleandata.csv',
           script='clean.R',
           depends=c('data1.csv', 'data2.csv'))

# generate the content of a makefile (as character vector)
makefile(list(r))

# generate to file
tmp <- tempdir()
makefile(list(r), file.path(tmp, "Makefile"))

rmake documentation built on Nov. 12, 2025, 9:06 a.m.