Mastering Debugging in R (2024)

One major thing that I learned throughout the years is the power of debugging. Irrespective of the programming language I use, debugging is for me key when it comes to understanding the functionality of code (also for code written by someone else). One of the very first steps when digging into a new coding basis is always turning the debugging mode on - it guides you so nicely through the functions that were written (and that show you how they are connected) 😊

As a fun fact, when I wrote the initial version of my first R package, I wasn’t aware of how debugging works in R and I used a lot of print() statements to understand my functions. And there’s nothing wrong with using print() (or other ways) to understand your function (and is also often the go-to solution for many people 😊)

It works in particular well for smaller functions but once your code universe gets larger, unleashing the power of debugging is a game changer!

💡 So, how do you debug in R?

Three basic commands in RStudio let you do the debugging: debug(function_name), browser(), and undebug(function_name).

With debug(function_name) you start the debugging of your function - it’s basically like a mole that digs in. When you’re in debug mode, you can also call the objects in your function.

If you want your debugger to stop at a certain point, you can manually set your breakpoints in the UI; but I’ve learned that this does not work reliably in RStudio. If you have experience with PyCharm or VS Code, there it works smoothly!). But for RStudio, I always go for the good old browser() call and place it, where I want my function to stop 😊 the downside with browsers is, that you have to make sure to remove them later to have clean and fully working code. And that’s how the browser works in action:

Once we’re done with debugging, it’s important to turn the debug mode off - simply with undebug(function_name). Or, if you’re working in a package environment hit devtools::load_all() or the shortcut: Cmd + Shift + L (or on Windows: Ctrl + Shift + L)

While there is also debugonce(), I hardly use it because I usually go back into a function more than once. My typical workflow would then be: debug() > “find error, fix it” in a loop > “Cmd + Shift + L” because I usually work in a package environment.

👩🏼‍💻 More helpful tools for debugging

Another great tool that you can use to better understand code structures is {flow} by Antoine Fabri - it visualizes a chart diagram of the functional architecture. Let’s take a look at this simple function that calculates the sum:

make_sum <- function(a, b) { c <- a + b return(c)}

But what happens under the hood? We can see it here in code language but wouldn’t it be great to see it more visually? Here’s {flow}’s moment to shine! ✨ Run this line of code and you’ll get a flow diagram that shows you how the function works 🥳

install.packages("flow")library(flow)flow_run(make_sum(a=2, b=3))

This looks relatively simple, right? Well, that’s the case because it IS a simple function - but it becomes more and more complex, the larger the function gets and the more sub-functions it has.Just try it out yourself with one of your favorite functions 👩‍💻

If you look for more examples, search on Twitter for the #debuggingflow hashtag that we used when I was curating the R-Ladies' Twitter account 🥳

If you want more input, Shannon Pileggi put some nice slides on debugging and best practices together and Jenny Bryan gave a a keynote about debugging at the rstudio::conf(2020) 🗒

📝 For a summary of how debugging works and how it helps you to understand code, here’s a quick summary with a cute mole 💕 (also as 📄PDF for you to download here):