Automatically Search Errors or Warnings.
errorist
errorist: one who holds to and propagates error
The goal of errorist
is to automatically search errors and warnings the second they arise.
Installation
The errorist
package is available on both CRAN and GitHub. The CRAN version is considered stable while the GitHub version is in a state of development and may break. You can install the stable version of the errorist
package with:
install.packages("errorist")
For the development version, you can opt for:
if(!requireNamespace("remotes")) { install.packages("remotes") }
remotes::install_github("coatless-rpkg/errorist")
Usage
library(errorist)
Details
When the errorist
package is loaded, two handlers are automatically established to intercept the error and warning messages that arise during execution of code. The intercepted messages are then directed to pre-specified search engines on the internet using the user’s preferred system web browser. By default, the search engine used to look up the messages is Google.
You can specify a different search engine handler by setting default values:
errorist.warning
: Warning search engine portal. The default issearcher::search_google
.errorist.error
: Error search engine portal. The default issearcher::search_google
.errorist.autoload
: Automatically search errors. The default isTRUE
.
If frequent use of the package occurs, consider adding the different search handlers as an option in your .Rprofile
:
# Add custom options
.First <- function() {
options(
errorist.warning = searcher::search_google,
errorist.error = searcher::search_google
)
}
# Load the package if in RStudio or R GUI
if (interactive()) {
suppressMessages(require(errorist))
}
Motivation
The idea for errorist
came from a conversation among Dirk Eddelbuettel, Barry Rowlingson, and myself musing about having compilers provide a link explaining what the error meant and how to solve it. This conversation was sprouted due to the mouse overtext of XKCD Comic 1185: Ineffective Sorts.
StackSort connects to StackOverflow, searches for ‘sort a list’, and downloads and runs code snippets until the list is sorted.
This type of code search was implemented by:
https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/
The idea morphed from evaluating random code chunks to providing search support for errors that occurred at runtime.
Special Thanks
- Dirk Eddelbuettel for starting the discussion on XKCD Comic 1185: Ineffective Sorts.
- Barry Rowlingson for the package name and remarks about functionality.
- Brodie Gaslam for pointing out
addTaskCallback()
as a way to create a warning handler and for a brief discussion on “call” objects. - Joshua Ulrich for advise on incorporating the semi-documented
last.warning
object that R populates with warning messages.
License
GPL (>= 2)