Compare the metadata and contents of two packets. — orderly_compare

Insignificant differences in the metadata (e.g., different dates and packet IDs) are excluded from the comparison.

Usage

orderly_compare_packets(
  target,
  current,
  location = NULL,
  allow_remote = NULL,
  fetch_metadata = FALSE,
  root = NULL
)

Arguments

target: The id of the packet to use in the comparison.
current: The id of the other packet against which to compare.
location: Optional vector of locations to pull from. We might in future expand this to allow wildcards or exceptions.
allow_remote: Logical, indicating if we should allow packets to be found that are not currently unpacked (i.e., are known only to a location that we have metadata from). If this is TRUE, then in conjunction with orderly_dependency() you might pull a large quantity of data. The default is NULL. This is TRUE if remote locations are listed explicitly as a character vector in the location argument, or if you have specified fetch_metadata = TRUE, otherwise FALSE.
fetch_metadata: Logical, indicating if we should pull metadata immediately before the search. If location is given, then we will pass this through to orderly_location_fetch_metadata() to filter locations to update. If pulling many packets in sequence, you will want to update this option to FALSE after the first pull, otherwise it will update the metadata between every packet, which will be needlessly slow.
root: The path to the root directory, or NULL (the default) to search for one from the current working directory. This function does not require that the directory is configured for orderly, and can be any outpack root (see orderly_init() for details).

Value

An object of class orderly_comparison. The object can be printed to get a summary description of the differences, or passed to orderly_comparison_explain() to display more details.

Examples


# Here are two packets that are equivalent, differing only in id
# and times:
path <- orderly_example()
#> ✔ Created orderly root at '/tmp/RtmpG21yn4/orderly_ex_19981acdd038'
id1 <- orderly_run("data", root = path)
#> ℹ Starting packet 'data' `20261012-154759-bebabd79` at 2026-10-12 15:47:59.748844
#> > orderly_description(
#> +   display = "A demo data set")
#> > x <- jitter(1:30)
#> > y <- 0.4 * x + 5 + rnorm(length(x), sd = 2)
#> > d <- data.frame(x, y)
#> > orderly_artefact("data.rds", description = "A synthetic dataset")
#> > saveRDS(d, "data.rds")
#> ✔ Finished running data.R
#> ℹ Finished 20261012-154759-bebabd79 at 2026-10-12 15:47:59.807539 (0.05869508 secs)
id2 <- orderly_run("data", root = path)
#> ℹ Starting packet 'data' `20261012-154759-d4b6ba8d` at 2026-10-12 15:47:59.834381
#> > orderly_description(
#> +   display = "A demo data set")
#> > x <- jitter(1:30)
#> > y <- 0.4 * x + 5 + rnorm(length(x), sd = 2)
#> > d <- data.frame(x, y)
#> > orderly_artefact("data.rds", description = "A synthetic dataset")
#> > saveRDS(d, "data.rds")
#> ✔ Finished running data.R
#> ℹ Finished 20261012-154759-d4b6ba8d at 2026-10-12 15:47:59.956871 (0.1224899 secs)
orderly_compare_packets(id1, id2, root = path)
#> ℹ Comparing packets 20261012-154759-bebabd79 and 20261012-154759-d4b6ba8d...
#> ℹ The following attributes are different across the two packets:
#> • files
#> ℹ Use `orderly_comparison_explain(...)` to examine the differences in more detail.

# A more interesting comparison:
id1 <- orderly_run("parameters", list(max_cyl = 6), root = path)
#> ℹ Starting packet 'parameters' `20261012-154800-00c52860` at 2026-10-12 15:48:00.007288
#> ℹ Parameters:
#> • max_cyl: 6
#> > # This declares that this orderly report accepts one parameter
#> > # 'max_cyl' with no default (i.e., it is required).
#> > pars <- orderly_parameters(max_cyl = NULL)
#> > orderly_artefact("data.rds", description = "Final data")
#> > # We can use the parameter by subsetting 'pars'; unlike regular R
#> > # lists you will get an error if you try and access a non-existent
#> > # element.
#> > data <- mtcars[mtcars$cyl <= pars$max_cyl, ]
#> > saveRDS(data, "data.rds")
#> ✔ Finished running parameters.R
#> ℹ Finished 20261012-154800-00c52860 at 2026-10-12 15:48:00.036791 (0.02950311 secs)
id2 <- orderly_run("parameters", list(max_cyl = 4), root = path)
#> ℹ Starting packet 'parameters' `20261012-154800-0f099e3e` at 2026-10-12 15:48:00.062747
#> ℹ Parameters:
#> • max_cyl: 4
#> > # This declares that this orderly report accepts one parameter
#> > # 'max_cyl' with no default (i.e., it is required).
#> > pars <- orderly_parameters(max_cyl = NULL)
#> > orderly_artefact("data.rds", description = "Final data")
#> > # We can use the parameter by subsetting 'pars'; unlike regular R
#> > # lists you will get an error if you try and access a non-existent
#> > # element.
#> > data <- mtcars[mtcars$cyl <= pars$max_cyl, ]
#> > saveRDS(data, "data.rds")
#> ✔ Finished running parameters.R
#> ℹ Finished 20261012-154800-0f099e3e at 2026-10-12 15:48:00.092645 (0.02989721 secs)
cmp <- orderly_compare_packets(id1, id2, root = path)
cmp
#> ℹ Comparing packets 20261012-154800-00c52860 and 20261012-154800-0f099e3e...
#> ℹ The following attributes are different across the two packets:
#> • parameters
#> • files
#> ℹ Use `orderly_comparison_explain(...)` to examine the differences in more detail.

# A verbose comparison will show differences in the constituent
# components of each packet:
orderly_comparison_explain(cmp, verbose = TRUE)
#> ℹ Comparing packets 20261012-154800-00c52860 and 20261012-154800-0f099e3e...
#> ℹ Comparing attribute `parameters`
#> < 20261012-154800-00c52860$parameters
#> > 20261012-154800-0f099e3e$parameters
#> @@ 1,3 / 1,3 @@  
#>   $max_cyl       
#> < [1] 6          
#> > [1] 4          
#>                  
#> ! The following files differ across packets, but could not be compared as their content is binary:
#>   • data.rds