.run cli hyperlinks with base functions.

[olivroy]

Hi,

I was wondering if it would be possible to allow base functions to have hyperlinks.

It would be handy if

cli::cli_text("{.run names(.Last.value)}")

worked.

The workaround I found is to create my own package and to wrap base::names() function in it, so I can do this.

cli::cli_text("{.run mypkg::get_names()}")

with

get_names <- function(x = .Last.value) { 
  names(x)
}

Thanks for the great package!

Actually I use this as I override the tibble printing method. When a data frame is long, I like to have a clickable hyperlink to display the names of the last value.

[gaborcsardi]

cli already allows this, e.g. it works in my terminal. But RStudio does not allow it: https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio/issues/11273

[moodymudskipper]

Here are the rules I got from the linked thread + experimentation, since I believe those are not documented yet :

• base, utils, stats: are forbidden
• testthat, devtools, usethis, rlang : hyperlinks always run code, even when not attached
• For other packages :
  • hyperlinks run code for exported functions that contain no dot in their names
  • The package must be attached, having the namespace loaded is not enough, except if the cli function is called from the said package (I think)
  • If the latter is not satisfied clicking the hyperlink prints the call to the console so user can see the code and validate.

The reason as I understand it is that the hyperlink could have dangerous behavior, like removing files or objects, so for instance we forbid base so you can't rm(). You might wrap rm() in a custom function but then the function would have to be in an attached package so it's somewhat safer, though it seems to me it's quite easy to hack around those measures.

[gaborcsardi]

Closing as cli cannot do anything about this.