Detect modifications to a resource.

The modification_tracker is responsible for determining whether any changes have been made to the file(s) associated to the given resource.

modification_tracker(object, ..., modification_tracker.return = "object",
  modification_tracker.touch = TRUE)

Arguments

object	active_resource. See active_resource.
...	additional parameters to pass to the next layer in the resource parsing tower.
modification_tracker.return	character. What to return in this layer of the parsing tower. The options are c("modified", "object"). The former returns whether or not the file associated with the resource has been modified (or in the case of idempotent resources, the file and its helpers). The resource itself will not be parsed. The latter, "object", will parse the resource as usual. This is the default.
modification_tracker.touch	logical. Whether or not to update an internal cache that keeps track of last time the resource is modified. This is an internal parameter that is set to FALSE by recursive calls to director$resource to avoid polluting the modification cache while investigating dependency changes. The default is TRUE.

Value

The parsed resource.

Details

If a modification has been detected, the local modified will be injected for use in the preprocessor or parser for the resource.

Note that we can use the modification_tracker to determine whether the resource has been modified: director_object$resource(resource_name, modification_tracker.touch = FALSE, modification_tracker.return = "modified")

The use of modification_tracker.touch = FALSE is necessary to avoid polluting the internal cache that determines whether or not the resource has been modified.

Note

The parameters must be named object and ... due to this method's inclusion in a tower.

See also

active_resource, tower

Examples

not_run({
    # Imagine we are constructing a stagerunner from a sequence of functions.
    # However, some of those functions have been built by other resources.
    # Imagine the following structure.
    # (See github.com/robertzk/stagerunner for an explanation of stagerunners.)

    #=== /dir/runners/project1.R ===
    list(
      "import data"  = resource("importers/db"),   # These are some functions
      "munge data"   = resource("mungers/impute"), # built by the user
      "create model" = resource("models/lm"),      # that live in other
      "export model" = resource("exporters/file")  # files.
    )

    #=== R console ===
    d <- director("/dir") # Create a director object.
    d$register_preprocessor("runners/", function(director, source, modified) {
      # `modified` has been set by the modification_tracker to
      # TRUE or FALSE according as /dir/runners/project1.R has been modified.
      if (modified || is.null(runner <- director$cache_get("last_runner"))) {
        # Construct a new stageRunner, since the file has been modified.
        source()
      } else { runner }
    })

    d$register_parser("runners/", function(output) {
      # If it is a stageRunner, it must have been retrieved from the cache.
      if (stagerunner::is.stageRunner(output)) { return(output) }
      runner <- stagerunner::stageRunner$new(new.env(), output)

      # Cache the runner so it is available in the preprocessor next time.
      # As long as the /dir/runners/project1.R file remains untouched, we will
      # not have to bother re-sourcing the file and hence reconstructing the
      # stageRunner.
      director$cache_set("last_runner", runner)
      runner
    })

    sr  <- d$resource("runners/project1") # A fresh new stageRunner!
    sr2 <- d$resource("runners/project1") # Same one, since it used the cache.
    stopifnot(identical(sr, sr2))

    # We can use base::Sys.setFileTime to pretend like we updated the
    # modified time of the project1.R file, triggering `modified = TRUE`.
    Sys.setFileTime(file.path(d$root(), "runners", "project1.R"),
      Sys.time() - as.difftime(1, units = "mins"))

    sr3 <- d$resource("runners/project1") # Now it re-builds the runner.
    stopifnot(!identical(sr, sr3)) # A new runner!
})