View a data object inline when not in an interactive R session

A drop-in replacement for utils::View(). In an interactive R session it behaves identically to utils::View(), opening the RStudio / R Console data viewer. In a non-interactive context such as an R Markdown or Quarto document, where utils::View() typically errors, it instead renders an interactive DT::datatable() inline so users can still inspect the data without their document failing to render.

Usage

View(x, title = NULL, n = 1000L, full = FALSE, seed = NULL, quiet = FALSE)

Arguments

x

an R object which can be coerced to a data frame.

title

title for the viewer window. Defaults to the name of x prefixed by Data: , matching the convention used by utils::View().

n

maximum number of rows to show in the inline DT::datatable(). When x has more than n rows and full = FALSE, a random sample of n rows is shown instead of the whole data frame. Default 1000.

full

if TRUE, show every row of x in the inline table instead of sampling (may be slow, and DT may warn, for very large data). Default FALSE.

seed

optional integer seed making the random sample reproducible. The global random-number stream is left unchanged regardless of whether seed is supplied. Default NULL (a fresh sample each call).

quiet

if TRUE, suppress the message announcing that a random sample is being shown. Default FALSE.

Value

In an interactive session, invisibly returns NULL (called for the side effect of displaying x in a viewer). In a non-interactive session, returns a DT::datatable() htmlwidget – except inside webR (where pandoc is unavailable), where it renders a self-contained static HTML table through the browser viewer and invisibly returns NULL.

Details

For large data frames a client-side DT::datatable() is slow and warns that the data is too big. So in non-interactive contexts, when x has more than n rows and full = FALSE, View() shows a random sample of n rows and emits a message saying so. This keeps "just look at the data" fast for beginners while making the size limitation explicit. The interactive utils::View() path is unaffected (RStudio's viewer handles large data natively), so n / full / seed / quiet apply only to the inline DT rendering.

See also

utils::View(), DT::datatable()

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
  # In an interactive R session, behaves like utils::View():
  View(un_member_states_2024)

  # In an R Markdown or Quarto document, renders an interactive
  # DT::datatable() inline instead of erroring:
  View(un_member_states_2024)

  # For large data a random sample is shown by default; override with:
  View(some_big_data, full = TRUE)   # all rows (may be slow)
  View(some_big_data, n = 500)       # sample 500 rows instead of 1000
  View(some_big_data, seed = 42)     # reproducible random sample
  View(some_big_data, quiet = TRUE)  # no "random sample" message
} # }