wflow_start creates a directory with the essential files for
a workflowr project. The default behavior is to add these files to
a new directory, but it is also possible to populate an existing
directory. By default, the working directory is changed to the
workflowr project directory.
wflow_start(
directory,
name = NULL,
git = TRUE,
existing = FALSE,
overwrite = FALSE,
change_wd = TRUE,
disable_remote = FALSE,
dry_run = FALSE,
user.name = NULL,
user.email = NULL
)character. The directory where the workflowr
project files will be added, e.g., "~/my-wflow-project". When
existing = FALSE, the directory will be created.
character (default: NULL). The name of the
project, e.g. "My Workflowr Project". When name = NULL, the
project name is automatically determined based on
directory. For example, if directory =
"~/projects/my-wflow-project", then name is set to
"my-wflow-project". The project name is displayed on the
website's navigation bar and in the README.md file.
logical (default: TRUE). Should the workflowr files be
committed with Git? If git = TRUE and no existing Git repository is
detected, wflow_start will initialize the repository and make an
initial commit. If a Git repository already exists in the chosen directory,
wflow_start will commit any newly created or modified files to the
existing repository (also need to set existing = TRUE). If git
= FALSE, wflow_start will not perform any Git commands.
logical (default: FALSE). Indicate whether
directory already exists. This argument is added to prevent
accidental creation of files in an existing directory; setting
existing = FALSE prevents files from being created if the
specified directory already exists.
logical (default: FALSE). Similar to
existing, this argument prevents files from accidentally
being overwritten when overwrite = FALSE. When
overwrite = TRUE, any existing file in directory that
has the same name as a workflowr file will be replaced by the
workflowr file. When git = TRUE, all the standard workflowr
files will be added and committed (regardless of whether they were
overwritten or still contain the original content).
logical (default: TRUE). Change the working
directory to the directory.
logical (default: FALSE). Create a Git
pre-push
hook that prevents pushing to a remote Git repository (i.e. using
wflow_git_push). This is useful for extremely confidential
projects that cannot be shared via an online Git hosting service (e.g.
GitHub or GitLab). The hook is saved in the file
.git/hooks/pre-push. If you change your mind and want to push the
repository, you can delete that file. Note that this option is only
available if git = TRUE. Note that this is currently only supported
for Linux and macOS.
logical (default: FALSE). When dry_run
= TRUE, the actions are previewed without executing them.
character (default: NULL). The user name
used by Git to sign commits, e.g., "Ada Lovelace". This setting
only applies to the workflowr project being created. To specify the
global setting for the Git user name, use
wflow_git_config instead. When user.name =
NULL, no user name is recorded for the project, and the global
setting will be used. This setting can be modified later
by running git config --local in the Terminal.
character (default: NULL). The email
address used by Git to sign commits, e.g.,
"ada.lovelace@ox.ac.uk". This setting only applies to the workflowr
project being created. To specify the global setting for the Git
email address, use wflow_git_config instead. When
user.name = NULL, no email address is recorded for the
project, and the global setting will be used. This setting can be
modified later by running git config --local in the Terminal.
An object of class wflow_start, which is a list with the
following elements:
The input argument directory.
The input argument name.
The input argument git.
The input argument existing.
The input argument overwrite.
The input argument change_wd.
The input argument disable_remote.
The input argument dry_run.
The input argument user.name.
The input argument user.email.
The object returned by
git2r::commit, or NULL if git =
FALSE.
This is recommended function to set up the file infrastructure for
a workflowr project. If you are using RStudio, you can also create
a new workflowr project as an "RStudio Project Template". Go to
"File" -> "New Project..." then select "workflowr project" from the
list of project types. In the future, you can return to your
project by choosing menu option "Open Project..." and selecting the
.Rproj file located at the root of the workflowr project
directory. In RStudio, opening this file will change the working
directory to the appropriate location, set the file navigator to
the workflowr project directory, and configure the Git pane.
wflow_start populates the chosen directory with the
following files:
|--- .gitignore
|--- .Rprofile
|--- _workflowr.yml
|--- analysis/
| |--- about.Rmd
| |--- index.Rmd
| |--- license.Rmd
| |--- _site.yml
|--- code/
| |--- README.md
|--- data/
| |--- README.md
|--- docs/
|--- <directory>.Rproj
|--- output/
| |--- README.md
|--- README.md
The two required subdirectories are analysis/ and
docs/. These directories should never be removed from the
workflowr project.
analysis/ contains all the source R Markdown files that
implement the analyses for your project. It contains a special R
Markdown file, index.Rmd, that typically does not include R
code, and is will be used to generate index.html, the
homepage for the project website. Additionally, this directory
contains the important configuration file _site.yml. The
website theme, navigation bar, and other properties can be
controlled through this file (for more details see the
documentation on
R
Markdown websites). Do not delete index.Rmd or
_site.yml.
docs/ will contain all the webpages generated from the R
Markdown files in analysis/. Any figures generated by
rendering the R Markdown files are also stored here. Each figure is
saved according to the following convention:
docs/figure/<Rmd-filename>/<chunk-name>-#.png, where
# corresponds to which of the plots the chunk generated (one
chunk can produce several plots).
_workflowr.yml is an additional configuration file used only
by workflowr. It is used to apply the workflowr reproducibility
checks consistently across all R Markdown files. The most important
setting is knit_root_dir which determines the directory
where the scripts in analysis/ are executed. The default is
to run code from the project root (i.e., "."). To
execute the code from analysis/, for example, change the
setting to knit_root_dir: "analysis". See
wflow_html for more details.
Another required file is the RStudio project file (ending in
.Rproj). Do not delete this file even if you do not
use RStudio; among other essential tasks, it is used to determine
the project root directory.
The optional directories are data/, code/, and
output/. These directories are suggestions for organizing
your workflowr project and can be removed if you do not find them
relevant to your project.
data/ should be used to store "raw" (unprocessed) data
files.
code/ should be used to store additional code that might not
be appropriate to include in R Markdown files (e.g., code to
preprocess the data, long-running scripts, or functions that are
used in multiple R Markdown files).
output/ should be used to store processed data files and
other outputs generated from the code and analyses. For example,
scripts in code/ that pre-process raw data files from
data/ should save the processed data files in
output/.
All these subdirectories except for docs/ include a README
file summarizing the contents of the subdirectory, and can be
modified as desired, for example, to document the files stored in
each directory.
.Rprofile is an optional file in the root directory of the
workflowr project containing R code that is executed whenever the
.Rproj file is loaded in RStudio, or whenever R is started
up inside the project root directory. This file includes the line
of code library("workflowr") to ensure that the workflowr
package is loaded.
Finally, .gitignore is an optional file that indicates to
Git which files should be ignored---that is, files that are never
committed to the repository. Some suggested files to ignore such as
.Rhistory and .Rdata are listed here.
Do not delete the file .Rproj even if you do not use
RStudio; workflowr will not work correctly unless this file is
there.
vignette("wflow-01-getting-started")
if (FALSE) {
wflow_start("path/to/new-project")
# Provide a custom name for the project.
wflow_start("path/to/new-project", name = "My Project")
# Preview what wflow_start would do
wflow_start("path/to/new-project", dry_run = TRUE)
# Add workflowr files to an existing project.
wflow_start("path/to/current-project", existing = TRUE)
# Add workflowr files to an existing project, but do not automatically
# commit them.
wflow_start("path/to/current-project", git = FALSE, existing = TRUE)
}