The plothistory package

How can I used it?

The plothistory package enables one to store all plots generated during a session in a user-defined directory, alike all commands stored in the .Rhistory file. These directories can be reused across different sessions to keep storing plots.

library(plothistory)

Three directories can be used:

• Temporary directory, as created by tempdir(), using the phist_tmp_dir() function. This temporary directory is deleted once the R session closes.

phist_tmp_dir()

## Plot history set to
##   /tmp/RtmpwN73V6

• A central cache, using the phist_cache_dir() function.

phist_cache_dir()

## Plot history set to
##   /home/runner/.cache/R/plothistory

• An arbitrary user-defined directory, using the phist_dir().

phist_dir(getwd())

## Plot history set to
##   /home/runner/work/plothistory/plothistory/vignettes

In each case, the function will first check if the directory exists, and created if required. The user will be asked to confirm whether the central cache directory should be created the first time phist_cache_dir() is used.

The storage of all plots is initiated by the plothistory() function. By default, it will use a temporary directory, but the above functions can be functions can be passed to plothistory() to change this behaviour.

plothistory()

## Plot history set to
##   /tmp/RtmpwN73V6

## httpgd server running at:
##   http://127.0.0.1:43425/live?token=BTJyUwJt

The plots are generated using the httpgd graphics device and can be seen at the URL shown above. Each plot is now copied in the directory defined in plothistory().

Here are two short videos that illustrate the package’s usage:

Quick demo of the plothistory package using a temporary directory

Short video showing how to use plothistory() with the package cache directory

For more details on how this works, see the plothistory() manual page online or with ?plothistory.

Session information

sessionInfo()

## R version 4.3.3 (2024-02-29)
## Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
## Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
## 
## Matrix products: default
## BLAS:   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3 
## LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libopenblasp-r0.3.20.so;  LAPACK version 3.10.0
## 
## locale:
##  [1] LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C           LC_TIME=C.UTF-8       
##  [4] LC_COLLATE=C.UTF-8     LC_MONETARY=C.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=C.UTF-8   
##  [7] LC_PAPER=C.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C              LC_ADDRESS=C          
## [10] LC_TELEPHONE=C         LC_MEASUREMENT=C.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C   
## 
## time zone: UTC
## tzcode source: system (glibc)
## 
## attached base packages:
## [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
## 
## other attached packages:
## [1] plothistory_0.1.3
## 
## loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
##  [1] vctrs_0.6.5       cli_3.6.2         knitr_1.45        rlang_1.1.3      
##  [5] xfun_0.43         purrr_1.0.2       textshaping_0.3.7 jsonlite_1.8.8   
##  [9] htmltools_0.5.8   ragg_1.3.0        sass_0.4.9        rmarkdown_2.26   
## [13] evaluate_0.23     jquerylib_0.1.4   fastmap_1.1.1     yaml_2.3.8       
## [17] lifecycle_1.0.4   memoise_2.0.1     compiler_4.3.3    fs_1.6.3         
## [21] Rcpp_1.0.12       websocket_1.4.1   later_1.3.2       httpgd_2.0.1     
## [25] systemfonts_1.0.6 digest_0.6.35     R6_2.5.1          unigd_0.1.1      
## [29] magrittr_2.0.3    bslib_0.7.0       tools_4.3.3       pkgdown_2.0.7    
## [33] cachem_1.0.8      desc_1.4.3