Testing pane—is there a way to set env vars?

[Aariq]

I use an environment variable to control whether or not some long-running tests get skipped with testthat() in an R package. Is there a way to set that env var in the "Testing" pane?

[jennybc]

There's no way for a user to specifically contribute env vars to the R test explorer. At present, you'd have to make those env vars available to the spawned R process, presumably through .Renviron.

I encourage you to add this request to this issue where we're tracking potential improvements to the internals of the R test explorer:

#2638

What is your existing workflow for doing this? Context: I'm curious to understand the ergonomics of whatever you're doing now vs. what's possible with the Positron R test explorer.

[Aariq]

Locally, I'd run Sys.setenv(RNPN_SKIP_LONG_TESTS = FALSE) then test() if I wanted to run the long running tests locally. On GitHub Actions, I'd set env: RNPN_SKIP_LONG_TESTS: false to get an action that runs the long-running tests.

[jennybc]

So, if you were to use RStudio's "test this package" affordances, those would also not pick up your special env vars, right? By this I mean, "Test" in the Build pane or "Test Package" in the Build menu.

I think: You're hoping to match a behaviour in Positron's test explorer that you're able to achieve in an R Console (in RStudio or Positron) by running Sys.setenv(RNPN_SKIP_LONG_TESTS = FALSE) then devtools::test() (?).

[Aariq]

Yes, that's a good point. I don't often use the "Test" button in the build pane in RStudio because it doesn't offer as much added value as the testing pane in Positron over devtools::test() in the console. So I guess I just have a workflow (using an env var to skip/unskip tests) that doesn't work well with either of these. I can imagine it being useful to be able to set up different testing "profiles" with the testing pane in some way though