sqltargets - shorthand for SQL queries [show-and-tell]

[daranzolin]

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Description

Hi everyone, I fall in love with targets more and more every day, but have always thought running independent SQL files in a targets project was never as smooth as I'd like. Towards that end, I just created sqltargets, a targets extension that offers a tar_sql shorthand. The majority of the code has been adapted from tar_quarto, but some of it remains beyond my comprehension. In any case, I would love some critiques and feedback from you experts! The package has been minimally tested against some local SQLite databases.

[wlandau]

Great package! tar_sql() looks like a convenient abstraction, and I like how you structured the internals. My only suggestion would be to consider exposing the format argument of tar_target_raw() (currently supplied by tar_option_set(): https://github.com/daranzolin/sqltargets/blob/d20f8b65359701293f5e65d24d83e58029cbba1a/R/tar_sql_raw.R#L74).

[daranzolin]

Thanks so much Will, I think the format argument is creating some difficulty for me. tar_make() currently does not rerun the query when the query file changes, and my understanding is that this is because the format does not equal 'file'. I still want, however, the returned value to be the compressed data frame (e.g. rds, qs, etc.) that is the result of the query. Is there a way I can accomplish both? That is, given tar_sql(report, "query.sql"), tar_read(report) is a data frame, but targets will rerun the query when "query.sql" changes? Perhaps I am trying to have my cake and eat it too.

[wlandau]

You could have tar_sql() create two different targets: an upstream one which tracks the file, and a downstream one which uses it and runs the query.

[daranzolin]

That works great, thanks! sqltargets is now on CRAN, and I did take the liberty of adding the 'Targetopia' badge...hope that wasn't presumptuous of me.

[wlandau]

Fantastic! Feel free to also add your package to https://wlandau.github.io/targetopia/packages.html. The source file of that page is https://github.com/wlandau/targetopia/blob/main/packages.Rmd.