extended-typer-eval

Runs type inference (via a datatype query to flowr) on a number of .R scripts, then saves timing information and the inferred types to a database.

Setup

Typescript is required (npm, ts-node).

To depend on flowr, run ./import_flowr_local_branch.sh in the repository's root. This clones the flowr repo, builds flowr, and adds it as a local dependency. You can re-run this script to update the flowr dependency.

NOTE: the flowr dependency doesn't really work right now, because we depend on a branch which never made it into flowr's main branch. The types it exports can be used, everything else is broken. This will be fixed eventually.

Usage

The help page can be displayed via npm run main. The following arguments can be passed:

• <folder>: a folder containing .R scripts for which the type analysis should be evaluated.
• <database>: the path to an sqlite database file into which the evaluation results can be inserted.
• <comment>: an optional comment which will be inserted into the database with the other information.

Example

# basic01.R
x <- 0L
x #type=int#

# flow01.R
if (0) { x <- 0 } else { x <- "" }
x #type=x#
if (is.numeric(x)) {
  x #type=num#
} else {
  x #type=str#
}

After two runs with these .R files, using different versions of the type analysis, the database might look like this:

sqlite> SELECT * FROM runs;
╭────┬──────────────────────────┬────────────╮
│ id │           time           │  comment   │
╞════╪══════════════════════════╪════════════╡
│  1 │ 2026-09-01T12:43:40.366Z │ first test │
│  2 │ 2026-09-01T12:47:16.059Z │ second run │
╰────┴──────────────────────────┴────────────╯
sqlite> SELECT * FROM meta;
╭────┬───────────┬───────╮
│ id │   file    │  ms   │
╞════╪═══════════╪═══════╡
│  1 │ basic01.R │ 721.0 │
│  1 │ flow01.R  │ 692.0 │
│  2 │ basic01.R │ 696.0 │
│  2 │ flow01.R  │ 727.0 │
╰────┴───────────┴───────╯
sqlite> SELECT * FROM types;
╭────┬───────────┬──────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ id │   file    │ name │                                    json                                    │
╞════╪═══════════╪══════╪════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╡
│  1 │ basic01.R │ int  │ {"tag":"RIntegerType"}                                                     │
│  1 │ flow01.R  │ x    │ {"tag":"RTypeUnion","types":[{"tag":"RStringType"},{"tag":"RDoubleType"}]} │
│  1 │ flow01.R  │ num  │ {"tag":"RTypeUnion","types":[{"tag":"RStringType"},{"tag":"RDoubleType"}]} │
│  1 │ flow01.R  │ str  │ {"tag":"RTypeUnion","types":[{"tag":"RStringType"},{"tag":"RDoubleType"}]} │
│  2 │ basic01.R │ int  │ {"tag":"RIntegerType"}                                                     │
│  2 │ flow01.R  │ x    │ {"tag":"RTypeUnion","types":[{"tag":"RStringType"},{"tag":"RDoubleType"}]} │
│  2 │ flow01.R  │ num  │ {"tag":"RDoubleType"}                                                      │
│  2 │ flow01.R  │ str  │ {"tag":"RStringType"}                                                      │
╰────┴───────────┴──────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯