Custom config_file renamed during render

[debruine]

I have two different config files for rendering different versions of a book (including or excluding chapters). They have two different names, _bookdown_v1.yml and _bookdown_draft.yml, so I have to set the config_file argument when I render:

bookdown::render_book(config_file = "_bookdown_v1.yml")

During the rendering process, the config file is renamed to _bookdown.yml. This can cause several problems:

• If that file is open in RStudio, I get a warning that the file has disappeared; rendering pauses until I deal with the modal window
• If I have another file called _bookdown.yml, it is overwritten, so you can't keep a default file if you ever want to use a custom config file
• If R crashes or I force-quit during render, _bookdown.yml is not renamed back to _bookdown_v1.yml

There might be a good reason that the file has to be renamed, but I think if you copied it to _bookdown.yml rather than renaming it, it would avoid the first and third problems.

As always, thank you so much for all you do for the R community!

session_info

R version 4.1.0 (2021-05-18) Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit) Running under: macOS Mojave 10.14.6, RStudio 1.4.1106

Locale: en_GB.UTF-8 / en_GB.UTF-8 / en_GB.UTF-8 / C / en_GB.UTF-8 / en_GB.UTF-8

Package version: base64enc_0.1.3 bookdown_0.24 digest_0.6.29 evaluate_0.14 fastmap_1.1.0 glue_1.6.0
graphics_4.1.0 grDevices_4.1.0 highr_0.9 htmltools_0.5.2 jquerylib_0.1.4 jsonlite_1.7.3 knitr_1.37 magrittr_2.0.1 methods_4.1.0 rlang_0.4.12 rmarkdown_2.11 stats_4.1.0
stringi_1.7.6 stringr_1.4.0 tinytex_0.36 tools_4.1.0 utils_4.1.0 xfun_0.29
yaml_2.2.1

[cderv]

Hi,

If that can help understand the current behavior, here are some context:

Currently, config file needs to be name _bookdown.yml and located at the root of the project. So when another config file is provided in config_file what happens is the following.

https://github.com/rstudio/bookdown/blob/6ae8900f1438a463a6e14ab8ffbe75eecb1d59a4/R/render.R#L98-L106

• If there is already a _bookdown.yml then, it is saved in a temp file (by moving the file)
• The config_file content provided is then rename to _bookdown.yml
• At the end, on.exit close will revert back by moving the file in there initial place.

So it seems indeed that we are currently file.rename()-ing the YAML file and not just copying. I guess we could just apply the logic and copy 🤔 @yihui is there is reason to rename config_file to _bookdown.yml instead of just copying ?

If I have another file called _bookdown.yml, it is overwritten, so you can't keep a default file if you ever want to use a custom config file

The content is saved in a tempfile and restored at the end of the rendering - so you can have a default file and some custom files.

If R crashes or I force-quit during render, _bookdown.yml is not renamed back to _bookdown_v1.yml

We are dependant of on.exit() behavior here I guess. Even if we copy _bookdown_v1.yml, so we do not remove it, we need to change _bookdown.yml content if it exists. R crashing would then prevent restoring the initial content if on.exit is not called. We could probably not save in a temp file but in a _bookdown.yml.bak or _bookdown.yml.old maybe ? But writing in project directory is less safe than in a temp file when we need to name the file.

Another solution would be to support directly the user provided filename as a config file, without any copying and replacing.

Maybe something like this

diff --git a/R/render.R b/R/render.R
index ac87d259..dacd2793 100644
--- a/R/render.R
+++ b/R/render.R
@@ -95,17 +95,8 @@ render_book = function(
     "versions of bookdown."
   )

-  if (config_file != '_bookdown.yml') {
-    unlink(tmp_config <- tempfile('_bookdown_', '.', '.yml'))
-    if (file.exists('_bookdown.yml')) file.rename('_bookdown.yml', tmp_config)
-    file.rename(config_file, '_bookdown.yml')
-    on.exit({
-      file.rename('_bookdown.yml', config_file)
-      if (file.exists(tmp_config)) file.rename(tmp_config, '_bookdown.yml')
-    }, add = TRUE)
-  }
-
   on.exit(opts$restore(), add = TRUE)
+  opts$set(config_file = config_file)
   config = load_config()  # configurations in _bookdown.yml
   output_dir = output_dirname(output_dir, config)
   on.exit(xfun::del_empty_dir(output_dir), add = TRUE)
diff --git a/R/utils.R b/R/utils.R
index 8f6a67e1..8f47e0f4 100644
--- a/R/utils.R
+++ b/R/utils.R
@@ -69,10 +69,11 @@ get_base_format = function(format, options = list()) {
   do.call(format, options)
 }

-load_config = function() {
-  if (length(opts$get('config')) == 0 && file.exists('_bookdown.yml')) {
+load_config = function(config_file = '_bookdown.yml') {
+  config_file = opts$get('config_file') %n% config_file
+  if (length(opts$get('config')) == 0 && file.exists(config_file)) {
     # store the book config
-    opts$set(config = rmarkdown:::yaml_load_file('_bookdown.yml'))
+    opts$set(config = rmarkdown:::yaml_load_file(config_file))
   }
   opts$get('config')
 }

I wonder if that would be enough - load_config() is used in several places to retrieve default config. We need to be sure it gets the correct file. 🤔

@yihui you know better - I let you comment before doing any PR.

[yihui]

@yihui is there is reason to rename config_file to _bookdown.yml instead of just copying ?

Now I think we should copy instead of renaming.

Another solution would be to support directly the user provided filename as a config file, without any copying and replacing.

That sounds like a better idea.

[steeleb]

Hi all, I'll note I have a related issue:

I have a folder in my root directory called 'config_files' - it conatins .yml files are unrelated to my bookdown and belong to a different aspect of my repository/project. When I render my book (the Rmd's and associated yml files are in a folder called 'bookdown', which I've set up to export the output to a folder in the root directory called 'docs'), it moves the entirety of the 'config_files' folder, along with all files within the folder to a folder called _bookdown_files.

Is there any way to prevent this behavior from happening when I render a bookdown?

[cderv]

@steeleb I believe this happens only because folder ends with _files. If you rename like config-files it does not happen right ?

We list files in *_files and *_cache folder https://github.com/rstudio/bookdown/blob/e717c5e2c1965cc8d28d9b6722fd8f776a01ab99/R/utils.R#L448-L454

In R Markdown ecosystem, *_files folder are common has this is where a Rmd document would write its resources. I believe a config.Rmd would write to config_files folder too... which would conflict with your case.

@yihui should we make that a rule and warn about this in a bookdown project ? Or find a way to exclude some directories ? Like if it was named _config_files with a _ first ?

[yihui]

@steeleb Your issue is a different one, not related to the original issue here, but thanks for the report anyway! Next time you can file a new issue.

@cderv In theory, those _files and _cache folders must have their corresponding Rmd files. I'll add a filter.

[yihui]

@cderv I just applied the patch you provided above to fix @debruine's issue.

@steeleb Your issue should also be fixed now.

You can install the development version via

remotes::install_github('rstudio/bookdown')

[steeleb]

Oh how interesting, @cderv - thanks for elucidating. I tried a number of different names, but they all ended in ..._files so I was not able to resolve on my end. Thank you @yihui for coding up a solution here. This is great. Sorry for riding the coattails of @debruine's issue!

[cderv]

Thanks @yihui!