Supporting the Comprehension of Data Analysis Scripts

TL;DR

flowR is a tool extension for R IDEs that provides interactive visualizations, static analysis, and inline annotations to improve understanding and maintainability of data analysis scripts, supporting reproducibility.

Contribution

It introduces flowR, a comprehensive analysis extension for R IDEs that combines dataflow analysis, visualization, and plugin support for better script comprehension.

Findings

FlowR analyzes real-world R projects in under 576ms.

Provides interactive graphs, linting, and inline annotations.

Supports near real-time feedback for data analysis scripts.

Abstract

A lot of research relies on data analysis scripts to process, clean, and visualize data. However, recent studies show that these scripts are often hard to comprehend and maintain, hindering reproducibility and reuse, accompanied by a lack of tool support for handling such scripts. In this work, we focus on the R programming language, addressing this problem by presenting flowR as an extension for the common data analysis IDEs Positron and VS Code. Alongside a previously presented static backward program slicer, flowR provides an overview of data analysis scripts, interactive graph visualizations, linting, and inline value annotations to support data analysts. FlowR incrementally analyzes R projects by intertwining interprocedural data- and control-flow analyses to build a comprehensive dataflow graph, incorporating R's dynamic and explorative features. Additionally, flowR offers a plugin system and interfaces, allowing the integration of further analyses, such as new linting rules or custom visualizations. Requiring an average of 576ms to calculate the full dataflow graph of real-world projects, this enables near real-time feedback. The demonstration video is available at https://youtu.be/hJzr-r-NmMg . For the full source code and extensive documentation, refer to https://github.com/flowr-analysis/flowr . To try the docker image, use `docker run --rm -it eagleoutice/flowr`.