Environment

This R Package is used to Manage Environment Variables using the .Renviron file. .Renviron configuration file is part of the R ecosystem and well suited to manage sensitive information.

This Environment package makes defining, reading and clearing environment variables straightforward. Four utility functions are provided to manage environment variables. These functions are:

1. open.config.file - Opens the .Renviron configuration file in the IDE: RStudio or VSCode.
2. get.env.variable - Gets the value of an environment variable by name, as stored in .Renviron
3. cache.env.variable - Caches the value of an environment variable by name, for current R session.
4. clear.env.variable - Clears the value of an environment variable by name, for current R session.

Structural Validation of inputs are performed with meaningful error messages thrown to guide the user to troubleshoot any mistakes.

Note: This package is Standard compliant package.

Installation

This Environment R-Package is not available on CRAN. Use devtools to either install from GitHub or Build and Install Locally:

Install via GitHub

1. Use Devtools

devtools::install_github("https://github.com/FlippieCoetser/Environment")

Build and Install Locally

1. Generate .tar.gz file

devtools::build()

2. Install .tar.gz file

install.packages("path_to_file/tar_gz_file", repos = NULL, type="source")

Loading the Package

There are two ways to access the four utility functions:

1. Use the library function to load the four utility functions into the global namespace
2. Create an instance of the Environment component using the package namespace

Use Global Namespace

When using the library function to load the package the four utility functions are automatically loaded into the global namespace.

1. Load Package

library(Environment)

Use Package Namespace

When using the package namespace to create a new instance of the Environment component, the four utility functions will be available as member of the instance.

1. Create new instance of Environment component

environment <- Environment::Environment()

2. Access the three utility functions, by name, on the instance

environment[[name]]()

Usage

Define an environment

All environment variables are defined in a locally stored .Renviron configuration file. This package does not directly add environment variables into the .Renviron configuration file. To define new variable, simply use the provided utility function to open an existing or a new empty file directly in your IDE. This function requires either RStudio or VSCode.

1. Open .Renviron configuration file

open.config.file()

or

environment[['open.config.file']]()

Note: Add new environment variables as key value pairs directly into the .Renviron configuration file. Example, adding this: Username='DefinedUsername' on a new line, defines a new environment variable with name Username and value DefinedUsername

Get an environment variable's value

Reading environment variables is the most common use case of this package. Attempting to read an environment variable that is not defined will throw an exception with useful details.

1. Get environment variable's value

name <- "Username"

value <- name |> get.env.variable()

or

name <- "Username"

value <- name |> environment[['get.env.variable']]()

Cache an environment variable's value

This package provides a way to cache an environment variable with value for the current R session. This is useful when the value of an environment variable is used multiple times in the same R session.

1. Cache the value of an environment variable

name  <- "Username"
value <- "DefinedUsername"

name |> cache.env.variable(value)

or

name  <- "Username"
value <- "DefinedUsername"

name |> environment[['cache.env.variable']](value)

Clear an environment variable's value

This package provides a way to clear an environment variable for the current R session. This is useful when testing packages which relies on this package.

1. Clear the value of an environment variable

name  <- "Username"

name |> clear.env.variable()

or

name  <- "Username"

name |> environment[['clear.env.variable']]()

Contribute

Note: Developing R-Packages assumes you have devtools installed

Contributions is encouraged and very much welcome! Given this R-Package is Standard compliant, any contribution is expected to follow the same principles. This package is also developed using a TDD approach. It is therefore expected that commits happen in pairs: One commit with a failing test and one with a passing test. Lastly, R is flexible and allows for different syntax. Please stick to the naming and style convention used. For example dot.case is used as naming convention, and [['']] is preferred over $ as subset operator.

Running Unit Tests

Note: Some unit tests are not executed during the continuous integration process.

1. Running Unit Tests:

devtools::test()