Get R Script or RDS Object from improve Repository

Retrieves an R script (.R) or R data object (.rds) from the improve repository and returns metadata including the local file path. The file is downloaded but not loaded into memory - use sourceR() to execute scripts or readRDS() on the returned path to load RDS objects.

Usage

getR(ident, from = pwd(), addAsLink = TRUE, caption = "", description = "")

Arguments

ident: Path, resource ID, or entity ID of the R file. Can be a relative path (from current step), absolute path, or improve identifier
from: Root path for resolving relative paths. Defaults to pwd() (current step location)
addAsLink: Logical. If TRUE, creates a link in the inventory for provenance tracking. Use improveClean() at workflow end to clean up links
caption: Custom caption text. If empty, defaults to entityID and lastModified timestamp
description: Custom description text. If empty, defaults to filename

Value

A data frame with the following columns:

caption: Character. Source information including entity version ID and last modified timestamp
path: Character. Local file system path to the downloaded R file. Use this with source() or readRDS()
entityId: Character. Entity identifier on improve server
name: Character. Filename of the R script or RDS object
description: Character. Description text (defaults to filename)
resource: List. Complete resource metadata from improve server (29 fields)

Details

Unlike getData() which loads data into memory, getR() only downloads the R file and returns its metadata. The file is cached locally at the path specified in the path column.

Common workflows:

For R scripts: Use sourceR() to execute, or source(result$path)
For RDS objects: Use readRDS(result$path) to load the object
For metadata only: Access result$entityId, result$name, etc.

References

ics1141

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Get R script metadata
script_info <- getR("analysis/prepare_data.R")
script_path <- script_info$path

# Load and execute the script
source(script_path)

# Or use sourceR() helper (automatically sources)
sourceR("analysis/prepare_data.R")

# Get RDS object
model_info <- getR("models/final_model.rds")
model <- readRDS(model_info$path)
} # }