[help] specifying an output directory with quarto_render() works but also results in an error

[brndngrhm]

Help

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Description

I read through this discussion but am experiencing a slightly different outcome. I am able to get the rendered html to the right output directory, but my targets pipeline also errors.

I have my output directory defined in _quarto.yml like this:

project:
  output-dir: _quarto_output

(I tried changing it to match the recommendation here, but that just put the html in the R/reports directory instead of _quarto_output, so i went back to my original _quarto.yml)

when i run this target, it successfully creates an HTML document (although it creates nested folders in _quarto_output which wasnt expected but good enough) but i also i get the error below

  tar_quarto(
    name = explore_data,
    path = "R/reports/explore-data.qmd",
    quiet = FALSE,
    execute_params = list(
      data = combined_files,
      col_name_mapping = col_name_lookup_table
    )
  )

Output created: ..\..\_quarto_output\R\reports\explore-data.html

Error:
! targets::tar_make() error

── Debug target explore_data ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    tar_meta(explore_data)$error
    tar_workspace(explore_data)

── General debugging ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    • tar_errored()
    • tar_meta(fields = any_of("error"), complete_only = TRUE)
    • tar_workspace()
    • tar_workspaces()

── How to ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    • Debug: [https://books.ropensci.org/targets/debugging.html](vscode-file://vscode-app/c:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Programs/Positron/resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-sandbox/workbench/workbench.html#)
    • Help: [https://books.ropensci.org/targets/help.html](vscode-file://vscode-app/c:/Users/user_name/AppData/Local/Programs/Positron/resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-sandbox/workbench/workbench.html#)

── Last error message ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    _paths_ missing files: R/reports/explore-data.html

── Last error traceback ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    No traceback available.

[wlandau]

I am able to get the rendered html to the right output directory

Almost, but like you mention later, the output file ends up in _quarto_output/R/reports/explore-data.html instead of _quarto_output/explore-data.html. You'll see this if you run quarto render R/reports/explore-data.qmd in the command line, so that part is a Quarto issue.

i also i get the error below

targets needs to know the location of the output HTML file because it needs to watch the file for changes, and it's tricky when you have a project-level output-dir in _quarto.yml and a non-project-level path = "R/reports/explore-data.qmd". 083ca89 accounts for output-dir in this particular case. Even though the actual output file is not exactly where you want it, hopefully that helps.

I have never agreed with Quarto's policy around output file paths. When resolving relative paths, Quarto anchors off the parent directory of the source file, whereas most other tools anchor off the current working directory. Plus, there's the error "--output option cannot specify a relative or absolute path" whenever you try to explicitly set an output path (I forget where that Quarto issue thread lives).

[brndngrhm]

Thanks! i installed the latest dev version and the error is gone