R: Get an _agent_ from *pointblank* YAML and 'interrogate()'

yaml_agent_interrogate {pointblank}

R Documentation

Get an agent from pointblank YAML and `interrogate()`

Description

The yaml_agent_interrogate() function operates much like the yaml_read_agent() function (reading a pointblank YAML file and generating an agent with a validation plan in place). The key difference is that this function takes things a step further and interrogates the target table (defined by table-prep formula that is required in the YAML file). The additional auto-invocation of interrogate() uses the default options of that function. As with yaml_read_agent() the agent is returned except, this time, it has intel from the interrogation.

Usage

yaml_agent_interrogate(filename, path = NULL)

Arguments

filename

File name

⁠scalar<character>⁠ // required

The name of the YAML file that contains fields related to an agent.

path

#' @param path File path

⁠scalar<character>⁠ // default: NULL (optional)

An optional path to the YAML file (combined with filename).

Value

A ptblank_agent object.

Examples

There's a YAML file available in the pointblank package that's also called "agent-small_table.yml". The path for it can be accessed through system.file():

yml_file_path <- 
  system.file(
    "yaml", "agent-small_table.yml",
    package = "pointblank"
  )

The YAML file can be read as an agent with a pre-existing validation plan by using the yaml_read_agent() function.

agent <- yaml_read_agent(filename = yml_file_path)

agent

This image was generated from the first code example in the `yaml_write()` help file.

This particular agent is using ~ tbl_source("small_table", "tbl_store.yml") to source the table-prep from a YAML file that holds a table store (can be seen using yaml_agent_string(agent = agent)). Let's put that file in the working directory (the pointblank package has the corresponding YAML file):

yml_tbl_store_path <-
  system.file(
    "yaml", "tbl_store.yml",
    package = "pointblank"
  )

file.copy(from = yml_tbl_store_path, to = ".")

As can be seen from the validation report, no interrogation was yet performed. Saving an agent to YAML will remove any traces of interrogation data and serve as a plan for a new interrogation on the same target table. We can either follow this up with with interrogate() and get an agent with intel, or, we can interrogate directly from the YAML file with yaml_agent_interrogate():

agent <- yaml_agent_interrogate(filename = yml_file_path)

agent

This image was generated from the second code example in the `yaml_write()` help file.

Function ID

11-4

Get an agent from pointblank YAML and interrogate()