quarto_render() throws an uninformative error when output is an absolute path

[gadenbuie]

In renderthis we do something that's equivalent to quarto_render("slides.qmd", output = tempfile(fileext = ".html")). (Sidenote: this certainly worked at some point, but is now failing.)

By default, in this scenario, the error will read:

quarto_render("slides.qmd", output = tempfile(fileext = ".html"))
#> Error in "processx::run(quarto_bin, args, echo = TRUE)" : 
#>   ! System command 'quarto' failed

but with quiet = FALSE we uncover the underlying error (the message it uncovers is, honestly, a bit confusing).

quarto_render("slides.qmd", output = tempfile(fileext = ".html"), quiet = FALSE)
#> ERROR: --output option cannot specify a relative or absolute path
#> 
#> Error: --output option cannot specify a relative or absolute path
#>   at parseRenderFlags (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:42392:31)
#>   at Command.fn (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:90845:25)
#>   at Command.execute (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8437:24)
#>   at Command.parseCommand (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8333:25)
#>   at async quarto (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:127540:5)
#>   at async file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:127558:9

Edit: actually I realized our situation was slightly more nuanced. The temp file isn't in a different directory, but rather pointed to a location adjacent to the source input. Maybe quarto render previously allowed this scenario and is now more strict? Here's a better pseudo-reprex:

tmp_out <- file.path(getwd(), basename(tempfile(fileext = ".html")))
quarto_render("slides.Rmd", output = tmp_out)

[cderv]

ERROR: --output option cannot specify a relative or absolute path

This is thrown from Quarto itself.

Are you suggesting this error message is unclear (in which case this is to solve in Quarto directly) or that we should add a check in this R package so that we stop early in such case as Quarto does not support this

Maybe quarto render previously allowed this scenario and is now more strict?

Yes this is it. Context at quarto-dev/quarto-cli#2440 (and probably quarto-dev/quarto-cli#2266 for the initial thing that #2440 was trying to fix)

[gadenbuie]

Sorry, to be clear I meant that ! System command 'quarto' failed isn't very informative. At the least it could tell you to re-run quarto_render() with quiet = FALSE to see the underlying error. Or it might be better to collect the underlying error and chain with a more readable error from R?

Are you suggesting this error message is unclear (in which case this is to solve in Quarto directly) or that we should add a check in this R package so that we stop early in such case as Quarto does not support this

Maybe quarto_render() could help out with this? But I also understand we might not want the quarto package to be too restrictive and accidentally block supported behavior. So maybe just cleaner error chaining would help?

And thanks for the context links!

[cderv]

Thanks for clarification !

[cderv]

I went with adding a message to set quiet = FALSE. When quiet = TRUE quarto will return really nothing to play with. Only an error code.