Check and Load GBIF Credentials from .Renviron

Checks if GBIF access credentials (GBIF_EMAIL, GBIF_PWD, GBIF_USER) are available in the environment. If not, attempts to read them from the specified .Renviron file. If the credentials are still missing after reading the file, an error is thrown with details about which credentials are missing.

Usage

check_gbif(r_environ = ".Renviron")

Arguments

r_environ

Character string specifying the path to the .Renviron file where GBIF credentials are stored. Defaults to ".Renviron" in the current working directory.

Value

Returns NULL invisibly if the GBIF credentials are successfully loaded. Stops with an error if the credentials cannot be found or loaded.

Details

This function ensures that the necessary GBIF credentials are loaded into the R environment for accessing GBIF services, typically for using rgbif R package. It first checks if the credentials are already set as environment variables. If any are missing, it attempts to read them from the specified .Renviron file. If the file does not exist, is not readable, or does not contain all required credentials, the function stops with an informative error message. Note, however, that the function does not check if the credentials are valid or if they work with GBIF; only that they are present in the environment.

Author

Ahmed El-Gabbas

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{

  # Check GBIF credentials using the default .Renviron file
  check_gbif()

  # Specify a custom .Renviron file
  check_gbif(r_environ = "~/.Renviron")

} # }