[Bug]: New Teal package causes issues that were not there with previous package when assigning a label using attr and a special character

[jenko1979]

What happened?

The code below does not work in the new version of Teal but works fine with the old version. I think it is to do with the special apostrophe in the label

data <- teal_data()
data <- within(data, {
  ADSL <- tmc_ex_adsl
  ADSL$EOSDY[1] <- NA_integer_
  attr(ADSL$EOSDY, "label") <-"label’s like this cause downstream, issues"
  attr(ADSL$ARM, "label") <-"This label is OK"
})
join_keys(data) <- default_cdisc_join_keys[names(data)]

ADSL <- data[["ADSL"]]

app <- init(
  data = data,
  modules = modules(
    tm_t_summary(
      label = "Demographic Table",
      dataname = "ADSL",
      arm_var = choices_selected(c("ARM", "ARMCD"), "ARM"),
      add_total = TRUE,
      summarize_vars = choices_selected(
        c("SEX", "RACE", "BMRKR2", "EOSDY", "DCSREAS", "AGE"),
        c("SEX", "RACE")
      ),
      useNA = "ifany"
    )
  )
)
if (interactive()) {
  shinyApp(app$ui, app$server)
}

I re-iterate, switch to Teal package v0.16.0 and this code works fine

sessionInfo()

R version 4.4.1 (2024-06-14)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Running under: Rocky Linux 8.10 (Green Obsidian)

Matrix products: default
BLAS/LAPACK: /usr/lib64/libopenblasp-r0.3.15.so;  LAPACK version 3.9.0

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C               LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8     LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8   
 [6] LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8    LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                  LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

time zone: Etc/UTC
tzcode source: system (glibc)

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  utils     methods   base     

other attached packages:
 [1] forcats_1.0.0                     DT_0.33                           openxlsx_4.2.8                    fs_1.6.5                         
 [5] stringr_1.5.1                     tidyr_1.3.1                       haven_2.5.4                       dplyr_1.1.4                      
 [9] tibble_3.2.1                      teal.reporter_0.5.0               httr2_1.1.0                       junco_0.1.1                      
[13] teal.modules.clinical.junco_0.1.9 teal.modules.general_0.5.0        ggmosaic_0.3.3                    ggplot2_3.5.1                    
[17] teal.modules.clinical_0.11.1      tern_0.9.9                        rtables_0.6.13                    magrittr_2.0.3                   
[21] formatters_0.5.11                 teal.transform_0.7.0              teal_1.0.0                        teal.slice_0.7.0                 
[25] shiny_1.10.0                      teal.data_0.8.0                   teal.code_0.7.0                   teal.widgets_0.5.0               

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
  [1] RColorBrewer_1.1-3    rstudioapi_0.17.1     jsonlite_2.0.0        nestcolor_0.1.3       TH.data_1.1-3         estimability_1.5.1   
  [7] farver_2.1.2          rmarkdown_2.29        geepack_1.3.12        vctrs_0.6.5           memoise_2.0.1         htmltools_0.5.8.1    
 [13] broom_1.0.7           cellranger_1.1.0      gridGraphics_0.5-1    sass_0.4.9            huxtable_5.5.7        bslib_0.9.0          
 [19] htmlwidgets_1.6.4     fontawesome_0.5.3     sandwich_3.1-1        emmeans_1.10.7        plotly_4.10.4         zoo_1.8-13           
 [25] cachem_1.1.0          mime_0.12             lifecycle_1.0.4       pkgconfig_2.0.3       Matrix_1.7-1          R6_2.6.1             
 [31] fastmap_1.2.0         rbibutils_2.3         rlistings_0.2.12      digest_0.6.37         patchwork_1.3.0       shinycssloaders_1.1.0
 [37] pkgload_1.4.0         crosstalk_1.2.1       httr_1.4.7            compiler_4.4.1        withr_3.0.2           backports_1.5.0      
 [43] bsicons_0.1.2         logger_0.4.0          MASS_7.3-61           rappdirs_0.3.3        tools_4.4.1           zip_2.3.2            
 [49] httpuv_1.6.15         shinyvalidate_0.1.3   glue_1.8.0            nlme_3.1-166          promises_1.3.2        grid_4.4.1           
 [55] rsconnect_1.3.4       checkmate_2.3.2       generics_0.1.3        tidytlg_0.1.5         gtable_0.3.6          tzdb_0.4.0           
 [61] shinyBS_0.61.1        data.table_1.17.0     hms_1.1.3             ggrepel_0.9.6         pillar_1.10.1         yulab.utils_0.2.0    
 [67] later_1.4.1           splines_4.4.1         tern.gee_0.1.5        lattice_0.22-6        renv_1.0.7            survival_3.8-3       
 [73] tidyselect_1.2.1      knitr_1.49            teal.logger_0.4.0     xfun_0.53             stringi_1.8.4         lazyeval_0.2.2       
 [79] yaml_2.3.10           shinyWidgets_0.9.0    evaluate_1.0.3        codetools_0.2-20      ggplotify_0.1.2       cli_3.6.4            
 [85] xtable_1.8-4          Rdpack_2.6.2          jquerylib_0.1.4       Rcpp_1.0.14           readxl_1.4.3          png_0.1-8            
 [91] readr_2.1.5           assertthat_0.2.1      viridisLite_0.4.2     mvtnorm_1.3-3         scales_1.4.0          purrr_1.0.4          
 [97] crayon_1.5.3          rlang_1.1.5           cowplot_1.1.3         multcomp_1.4-28       shinyjs_2.1.0

Relevant log output

Error in UseMethod("join_keys<-", x) : 
  no applicable method for 'join_keys<-' applied to an object of class "c('qenv.error', 'try-error', 'simpleError', 'error', 'condition')"

From investigations we found that it ate the 'a' in the atrr( statement and instead converted it to ttr and then errors. Happens because of the apostrophe in the label previous

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[llrs-roche]

Hi! Thanks for reporting this.

I can reproduce this error with a more minimal setup (and moved the issue to teal.code where it can be fixed). This problem seems a combination of the apostrophe and a subsequent assignment.

As a workaround you could assign that label at the end of data.

library("teal.code")
within(qenv(), {
  a <- "label’s like this cause downstream, issues"
})
#> <environment: 0x00000213ab037bc0> 🔒 
#> Parent: <environment: package:teal.code> 
#> Bindings:
#> - a: [character]
within(qenv(), {
  a <- "label’s like this cause downstream, issues"
  b <- "1"
})
#> Error in `parse()`:
#> ! <text>:3:2: unexpected assignment
#> 2: b
#> 3:  <-
#>     ^
within(qenv(), {
  b <- "1"
  a <- "label’s like this cause downstream, issues"
  c <- 1+1
})
#> Error in `parse()`:
#> ! <text>:4:2: unexpected assignment
#> 3: c
#> 4:  <-
#>     ^

^{Created on 2025-09-30 with reprex v2.1.1}

[jenko1979]

Yes, thanks - i have a few workarounds, so its not causing me too many issues, but felt i should report this as it seemed odd how it all worked previously and now does not.