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Extra-strength glue engines for R Markdown, Quarto, and Shiny

epoxy

epoxy r-universe
badge R-CMD-check

epoxy makes templating with glue easy in R Markdown documents and Shiny apps.

Installation

You can install the latest version of epoxy with remotes

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("gadenbuie/epoxy")

or from gadenbuie.r-universe.dev.

options(repos = c(
  gadenbuie = "https://gadenbuie.r-universe.dev/",
  getOptions("repos")
))

install.packages("epoxy")

Setup

library(epoxy)

Loading epoxy adds four new knitr engines, or chunk types. Each type lets you intermix text with R code or data (expr in the table below), and each is geared toward a different output context.

Engine Output Context Delimiter
epoxy all-purpose markdown {expr}
epoxy_html HTML {{expr}}
epoxy_latex LaTeX <expr>
whisker all-purpose mustache template language

⚠️ Caution: Previously, epoxy provided a glue engine, but this conflicts with a similar chunk engine by the glue package. You can update existing documents to use the epoxy engine, or you can explicitly use epoxy’s glue chunk by including the following in your setup chunk.

use_epoxy_glue_engine()

Use epoxy

To use epoxy in your R Markdown document, create a new chunk using the engine of your choice. In that chunk, write in markdown, HTML, or LaTeX as needed, wrapping R expressions inside the delimiters for the epoxy chunk.

```{epoxy}
The average speed of the cars was **{mean(cars$speed)} mph.**
But on average the distance traveled was only _{mean(cars$dist)}_.
```

The average speed of the cars was 15.4 mph. But on average the distance traveled was only 42.98 ft.

epoxy is built around glue::glue(), which evaluates the R expressions in the { } and inserts the results into the string. The chunk above is equivalent to this call to glue::glue():

glue::glue("The average speed of the cars was **{mean(cars$speed)} mph**.
But on average the distance traveled was only _{mean(cars$dist)} ft_.")
#> The average speed of the cars was **15.4 mph**.
#> But on average the distance traveled was only _42.98 ft_.

One immediate advantage of using epoxy instead of glue::glue() is that RStudio’s autocompletion feature works inside epoxy chunks! Typing cars$ in the chunk will suggest the columns of cars.

Learn more

There’s a whole lot more that epoxy can do! Learn more: