Retrieve the JSON file location

[Jiefei-Wang]

Hi, I'm working on a google cloud storage package and would like to make it compatible with the existing packages, specifically googleCloudStorageR. The main issue is that my package uses a python library which requires a JASON credential file. googleCloudStorageR does use the JASON file but I cannot find a way to retrieve the file location from neither googleCloudStorageR nor googleAuthR. Since googleCloudStorageR depends on googleAuthR to do the authentification, I think this might be a good place to ask. Is there any way to get the location of the JASON file? If not, is it possible to store the file location in a place for the other package to use?

Best, Jiefei

[MarkEdmondson1234]

If you are using auto-auth (recommended) then the file location is available in R for googleCloudStorageR via Sys.getenv("GCS_AUTH_FILE") which will work if set via normal environment arguments by any language (so os.environ["GCS_AUTH_FILE"] in python)

[Jiefei-Wang]

Thank you @MarkEdmondson1234 . Currently, my package is using the system environment, which is exactly the same as your suggestion, but the issue would be that if a user sets/resets the authentification later, the change will not be propagated to my package. For example, here is an exported function in googleCloudStorageR:

gcs_auth <- function (json_file) 
{
    set_scopes()
    gar_auth_service(json_file = json_file)
}

To propagate the change, I have to export an extra authentification function and document it, which is not quite an elegant solution. I will appreciate it if you can export a function to get the file location. Thanks.

[MarkEdmondson1234]

I don’t understand your issue, could you show some code to explain what you mean?

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From: Jiefei Wang notifications@github.com Sent: Monday, November 25, 2019 7:11 PM To: MarkEdmondson1234/googleAuthR Cc: Mark; Mention Subject: Re: [MarkEdmondson1234/googleAuthR] Retrieve the JASON file location (#167)

Thank you @MarkEdmondson1234https://github.com/MarkEdmondson1234 . Currently, my package is using the system environment, which is exactly the same as your suggestion, but the issue would be that if a user resets the authentification via a function in googleAuthR later, the change will not be propagated to my package. I have to export an extra authentification function and document it, which is not quite an elegant solution. I will appreciate it if you can export a function to get the file location. Thanks.

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[Jiefei-Wang]

Sure, here is a simple example code:

pkg_private <- new.env()
.onLoad <- function(libname,pkgname){
  creds <- Sys.getenv("GCS_AUTH_FILE")
  if(creds!="")
    set_credentials(creds) 
}
set_credentials <- function(creds){
  pkg_private$credentials <- creds 
}

Ideally when users load the package and the environment variable can be found, the json file will be located. However, if a user does not set the environment variable, or wants to use a different json file, he needs to call set_credentials to set the location manually. You can clearly see that the package reinvents the wheel since there is already a gar_auth_service function in googleAuthR. Without the ability to retrieve the file location from googleAuthR, it is users' responsibility to set the credentials correctly, so if the package googleAuthR is loaded, the code will become:

creds <- "someFile.json"
set_credentials(creds)
gar_auth_service(creds)

Though two packages target on the same cloud, they work independently.

Best, Jiefei