[R] Error "STRING_ELT() can only be applied to a 'character vector', not a 'list'" from rmarkdown

Chris Evans chr|@ho|d @end|ng |rom p@yctc@org
Thu Aug 24 19:58:17 CEST 2023


I have an Rmarkdown file which is part of my distill "Rblog" 
(https://www.psyctc.org/Rblog/).  It was knitting fine until last week,
now knitting terminates with this:

Rscript -e 'rmarkdown::render("creating-a-shiny-server.Rmd")'


processing file: creating-a-shiny-server.Rmd

output file: creating-a-shiny-server.knit.md

/usr/bin/pandoc +RTS -K512m -RTS creating-a-shiny-server.knit.md --to 
html5 --from markdown+autolink_bare_uris+tex_math_single_backslash 
--output creating-a-shiny-server.html --lua-filter 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/rmarkdown/rmarkdown/lua/pagebreak.lua 
--lua-filter 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/rmarkdown/rmarkdown/lua/latex-div.lua 
--wrap preserve --standalone --table-of-contents --toc-depth 4 
--variable toc-float=1 --highlight-style 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/distill/rmarkdown/templates/distill_article/resources/arrow.theme 
--template 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/distill/rmarkdown/templates/distill_article/resources/default.html 
'--metadata=link-citations:true' --include-in-header 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b179ffd801html --include-in-header 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b15b1e3532html --include-in-header 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b13239652chtml --include-in-header 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b1581627e8html --include-in-header 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b12850a405html --include-before-body 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b16f8d72a6html --include-before-body 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b16ce17d77html --include-before-body 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b12f851f86html --include-after-body 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b14447b7b1html --include-after-body 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b143ff6632html --include-after-body 
/tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b1345b1dddhtml --mathjax --variable 
'mathjax-url=https://mathjax.rstudio.com/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML' 
--include-in-header /tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/rmarkdown-strb39b160f391de.html 
--include-in-header /tmp/Rtmp7WHAIE/fileb39b164361476html
Error in `xml_text<-.xml_node`(`*tmp*`, value = text) :
   STRING_ELT() can only be applied to a 'character vector', not a 'list'
Calls: <Anonymous> ... write_feed_xml -> add_child -> <Anonymous> -> 
xml_text<-.xml_node
In addition: There were 20 warnings (use warnings() to see them)
Execution halted

It's the same if I do it in Rstudio or from the command line like that 
so I think I can safely say it's not an Rstudio issue.

The same happens with other Rmd files in the distill _posts directory.

The really weird aspects are:

1) the html _is_ created fine (but if running in Rstudio it doesn't 
transfer to showing you the html)

2) the error message is only there if I run the Rmd in that directory, 
i.e. the 2023-08-19-creating-a-shiny-server directory in
_posts or in _posts above that, but I move it up againif I move it to 
higher or other directories it works fine:

Rscript -e 'rmarkdown::render("creating-a-shiny-server.Rmd")'


processing file: creating-a-shiny-server.Rmd

output file: creating-a-shiny-server.knit.md

/usr/bin/pandoc +RTS -K512m -RTS creating-a-shiny-server.knit.md --to 
html5 --from markdown+autolink_bare_uris+tex_math_single_backslash 
--output creating-a-shiny-server.html --lua-filter 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/rmarkdown/rmarkdown/lua/pagebreak.lua 
--lua-filter 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/rmarkdown/rmarkdown/lua/latex-div.lua 
--wrap preserve --standalone --table-of-contents --toc-depth 4 
--variable toc-float=1 --highlight-style 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/distill/rmarkdown/templates/distill_article/resources/arrow.theme 
--template 
/home/chris/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3/distill/rmarkdown/templates/distill_article/resources/default.html 
'--metadata=link-citations:true' --include-in-header 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a436c6281fhtml --include-in-header 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a455b7e5bdhtml --include-in-header 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a461db1ea1html --include-in-header 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a474a6e703html --include-before-body 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a494bd34html --include-before-body 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a42fbfec67html --include-before-body 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a4273d84ebhtml --include-after-body 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a4725e33cahtml --include-after-body 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a43d386888html --include-after-body 
/tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a43f19b459html --mathjax --variable 
'mathjax-url=https://mathjax.rstudio.com/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML' 
--include-in-header /tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/rmarkdown-strb43a43033daa0.html 
--include-in-header /tmp/RtmpGMqTCm/fileb43a42807e405html

Output created: creating-a-shiny-server.html
Warning message:
In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?

The 20 warnings are:

 > warnings()
Warning messages:
1: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
2: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
3: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
4: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
5: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
6: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
7: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
8: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
9: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
10: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
11: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
12: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
13: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
14: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
15: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
16: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
17: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
18: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
19: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?
20: In as.character.POSIXt(as.POSIXlt(x), ...) :
   as.character(td, ..) no longer obeys a 'format' argument; use 
format(td, ..) ?

I'm not convinced that they're related to this as we know that's a issue 
that fixed and making its way to CRAN and is only
a warning.

I'm using up to date R on up to date Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS.

 > sessionInfo()
R version 4.3.1 (2023-06-16)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS:   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3
LAPACK: 
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libopenblasp-r0.3.20.so; 
LAPACK version 3.10.0

locale:
  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
  [3] LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8
  [5] LC_MONETARY=en_GB.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8
  [7] LC_PAPER=en_GB.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
  [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

time zone: Europe/Paris
tzcode source: system (glibc)

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

other attached packages:
  [1] lubridate_1.9.2 forcats_1.0.0   stringr_1.5.0 dplyr_1.1.2
  [5] purrr_1.0.2     readr_2.1.4     tidyr_1.3.0 tibble_3.2.1
  [9] ggplot2_3.4.3   tidyverse_2.0.0

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
  [1] sass_0.4.7        utf8_1.2.3        generics_0.1.3 xml2_1.3.5
  [5] stringi_1.7.12    distill_1.5       hms_1.1.3 digest_0.6.33
  [9] magrittr_2.0.3    evaluate_0.21     grid_4.3.1 timechange_0.2.0
[13] bookdown_0.35     fastmap_1.1.1     rprojroot_2.0.3 jsonlite_1.8.7
[17] fansi_1.0.4       scales_1.2.1      jquerylib_0.1.4 cli_3.6.1
[21] rlang_1.1.1       munsell_0.5.0     withr_2.5.0 cachem_1.0.8
[25] yaml_2.3.7        tools_4.3.1       tzdb_0.4.0 memoise_2.0.1
[29] colorspace_2.1-0  mime_0.12         vctrs_0.6.3 R6_2.5.1
[33] png_0.1-8         lifecycle_1.0.3   fontawesome_0.5.2 pkgconfig_2.0.3
[37] pillar_1.9.0      bslib_0.5.1       gtable_0.3.4 glue_1.6.2
[41] xfun_0.40         tidyselect_1.2.0  highr_0.10 rstudioapi_0.15.0
[45] knitr_1.43        farver_2.1.1      htmltools_0.5.6 rmarkdown_2.24
[49] labeling_0.4.2    compiler_4.3.1    downlit_0.4.3

Really bizarre issue but it's crippling my developing the Distill blog 
further as it breaks the otherwise excellent
Rstudio edit/knit/review/edit/knit/review workflow I use.

Appreciate any suggestions: TIA,


Chris


-- 
Chris Evans (he/him)
Visiting Professor, UDLA, Quito, Ecuador & Honorary Professor, 
University of Roehampton, London, UK.
Work web site: https://www.psyctc.org/psyctc/
CORE site: http://www.coresystemtrust.org.uk/
Personal site: https://www.psyctc.org/pelerinage2016/



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