Rationalize a vignette that should execute no code

[einsibjarni]

I'm the maintainer of the FreeBSD port of gargle.

I'm updating the package to 1.6.0 but when I run the tests I get this error:

* checking running R code from vignettes ...
  'auth-from-web.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'gargle-auth-in-client-package.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'get-api-credentials.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'how-gargle-gets-tokens.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'non-interactive-auth.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... failed
  'oauth-client-not-app.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'request-helper-functions.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'troubleshooting.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
 WARNING
Errors in running code in vignettes:
when running code in 'non-interactive-auth.Rmd'
  ...

> options(gargle_oauth_email = TRUE)

> options(gargle_oauth_email = "*@example.com")

> library(googledrive)

  When sourcing 'non-interactive-auth.R':
Error: there is no package called 'googledrive'
Execution halted

* checking re-building of vignette outputs ... SKIPPED

If I add a dependency for R-cran-googledrive I get a different error:

* checking running R code from vignettes ...
  'auth-from-web.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'gargle-auth-in-client-package.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'get-api-credentials.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'how-gargle-gets-tokens.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'non-interactive-auth.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... failed
  'oauth-client-not-app.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'request-helper-functions.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
  'troubleshooting.Rmd' using 'UTF-8'... OK
 ERROR
Errors in running code in vignettes:
when running code in 'non-interactive-auth.Rmd'
  ...
> drive_auth(email = "jenny@example.com")

  When sourcing 'non-interactive-auth.R':
Error: Can't get Google credentials.
i Are you running googledrive in a non-interactive session? Consider:
* Call `drive_deauth()` to prevent the attempt to get credentials.
* Call `drive_auth()` directly with all necessary specifics.
i See gargle's "Non-interactive auth" vignette for more details:
i <https://gargle.r-lib.org/articles/non-interactive-auth.html>
Execution halted

* checking re-building of vignette outputs ... SKIPPED
* DONE

So it seems we're missing googledrive from Suggests: and even
if that is added, the tests are not running correctly.

[jennybc]

It is surprising that any code in vignettes/non-interactive-auth.Rmd is being run at all, as eval = FALSE for this entire document:

gargle/vignettes/non-interactive-auth.Rmd

Lines 14 to 15 in a51df5a

	eval = FALSE,
	purl = FALSE

I do not expect the code chunks to execute successfully since they present realistic fragments of various auth flows that can't actually be fully specified and executed in this context.

I sure think I have this rigged correctly, else I don't think the package would build and check successfully in my own CI and on CRAN, which it does:

https://cran.r-project.org/web/checks/check_results_gargle.html

Is there anything unusual about your environment? I don't know of any way to somehow be ignoring the eval = TRUE chunk option, but that is certainly what this feels like.

[jennybc]

I've labelled this for tidy-dev-day September 2025 (but note that the story may still evolve a bit). I think the current vignette is fine as it is (or certainly should be!), because it uses existing mechanisms to prevent code execution.

But now that I've scrutinized the vignette, I suspect it would be better to use syntax that just presents R code snippets in a nicely styled way, but with no possibility of code execution. In addition to this issue, this vignette also generated false positives in my local URL checks (see r-lib/urlchecker#50).

This is about gargle's "Non-interactive auth" vignette:

https://gargle.r-lib.org/articles/non-interactive-auth.html

with source in this file:

https://github.com/r-lib/gargle/blob/v1.6.0/vignettes/non-interactive-auth.Rmd

Instead of specifying eval = FALSE and purl = FALSE in the setup chunk and using real code chunks, we could include the generally un-runnable code fragments like so:

```r
library(PKG)

options(gargle.gce.use_ip = TRUE)
t <- gargle::credentials_gce(
  "my-service-key@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com", # use YOUR service account
  scopes = "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/PKG"       # use REAL scopes
)
PKG_auth(token = t)
# ... do authenticated stuff...
```

I am also open to this being converted to a Quarto vignette in the same pull request. Consider that an optional add-on.

[einsibjarni]

Workaround for us is to run R CMD check --no-manual in our test

[jennybc]

@einsibjarni I'm glad you found a workaround. Yet I remain very surprised that the code is executing under any circumstances 🤔 Furthermore, the --no-manual flag is documented to "not produce the PDF and HTML manuals", which should pertain to the .Rd files for help topics, not to vignettes. So something still doesn't really add up here.

[tanho63]

(investigating as part of tidy-dev-day) @jennybc what do you think of converting all of these to articles instead of vignettes so that folks just consult the pkgdown site and revdeps don't run the vignettes?