How to run Quarto .qmd from within package

[robwiederstein]

I'm trying to write an article in Quarto/rmarkdown from within a package. The package will include functions and data pertaining to the article. The package documentation is being generated with pkgdown. I would like to include a function within the package that produces/runs/views the index.qmd. I've created a github repository with the code.

The operative function as currently written is :

viewArticle <- function(){
    quarto::quarto_run(input = system.file("article", "index.qmd", package = "helloQuarto"))
}

Here are the commands for starting with a clean project on my local machine:

remove.packages("helloQuarto")
pak::pkg_install("robwiederstein/helloQuarto")
library(helloQuarto)
search() #check path
helloQuarto::viewArticle()

Upon running the above commands, I receive the following error:

ERROR: The specified directory ('.') is not a Quarto project
Error in `processx::run(quarto_bin, args, echo = TRUE)`:
! System command 'quarto' failed
---
Exit status: 1
stdout & stderr: <printed>
---
Type .Last.error to see the more details.

<system_command_status_error/rlib_error_3_0/rlib_error/error>
Error in `processx::run(quarto_bin, args, echo = TRUE)`:
! System command 'quarto' failed
---
Exit status: 1
stdout & stderr: <printed>
---
Backtrace:
1. helloQuarto::viewArticle()
2. quarto::quarto_run(input = system.file("article", "index.qmd", …
3. quarto::quarto_render(input)
4. processx::run(quarto_bin, args, echo = TRUE)
5. processx:::throw(new_process_error(res, call = sys.call(), echo = echo, …

Session info is as follows:

R version 4.1.3 (2022-03-10)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Monterey 12.5.1

Matrix products: default
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.1/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  utils     methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] helloQuarto_0.1.0

Helpful resources include ?knitr::knit() @ note on paths and Quarto projects page.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--Rob

[cderv]

@robwiederstein

helloQuarto::viewArticle()

This function will require the user that use it to have Quarto available on PATH. Warning: CRAN won't have quarto (in case you plan to publish it to CRAN)

This is what the issue you have is about

@robwiederstein

! System command 'quarto' failed

@robwiederstein

I'm trying to write an article in Quarto/rmarkdown from within a package. The package will include functions and data pertaining to the article.

Do you really need index.qmd to be run by the user ? Can't you just share as a HTML file ?

In R package, especially for CRAN, vignettes with rmarkdown engine is still the best way to that. Quarto is not available for vignette on CRAN yet.

Building for a pkgdown website though to be publish as HTML is maybe possible though, as pkgdown process is independant of CRAN

[robwiederstein]

Good comments and good questions. I did not understand the error message so your response saves me from spending days debugging the code.

Many thanks. I had some ideas on a workaround and I'll pursue those instead.

-rob