Introduction to {attempt}

{attempt}

Tools for defensive programming, inspired by {purrr} mappers and based on {rlang}.

{attempt} is designed to handle the cases when something / someone attempts to do something it shouldn't.

For example:

• an attempt to run a log("a") (error)
• an attempt to connect to a web API without an internet connexion (error)
• an attempt to paste() "good morning" and iris (message/warning)
• …

{attempt} provides several condition handlers, from try catch to simple message printing.

{attempt} only depends on {rlang}, and every function is design to be fast, making it easy to implement in other functions and packages.

Install

From CRAN:

install.packages("attempt")

The dev version:

install.packages("attempt", repo = "https://colinfay.me/ran", type = "source")

Using {attempt}

{attempt} provides four families of functions :

• try catch
• adverbs
• if
• conditions handlers

try catch

Try catch functions are a family of functions which are used to deal with errors and warnings.

• attempt behaves like base::try, except that it allows custom message printing.
• try_catch is a wrapper around tryCatch that has a consistent grammar and allows the use of mappers.
• try_catch_df returns a tibble with the call, the error message if any, the warning message if any, and the value of the evaluated expression or “error”. The values will always be contained in a list-column.
• map_try_catch and map_try_catch_df allow to map on a list of arguments to be evaluated by the function in fun.

adverbs

Adverbs take a function and return a modified function.

• silently transforms a function so that when you call this new function, it returns nothing unless there is an error or a warning.
• surely transforms a function so that when you call this new function, it calls attempt().
• with_message and with_warning take a function, and add a warning or a message to it.

if

• if_none, if_any and if_all test the elements of the list.
• if_then perfoms a “if this then that”.
• if_else is a wrapper around base::ifelse() that works with mappers.

conditions

• stop_if, warn_if and message_if are easy to use functions that send an error, a warning or a message if a condition is met.
• they have a counterpart in _if_not, and _if_all, _if_any and _if_none.

About mappers

Mappers are functions built like one sided formulas.

In other words, ~ .x + 2 is the equivalent of function(x) return(x + 2).

The first argument in a mapper need to be .x.

More on mappers.

Misc

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Romain for the name suggestion.

Contact

Questions and feedbacks welcome!

You want to contribute ? Open a PR :) If you encounter a bug or want to suggest an enhancement, please open an issue.