pandoc_convert fails when a path contains unexpanded tilde and a space

[daattali]

This has come up because {rappdirs} created paths containing a tilde and a space r-lib/rappdirs#37, and that causes pandoc_convert to fail with error

pandoc.exe: ~/foo bar/test.md: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory)
Error: pandoc document conversion failed with error 1

I see this behaviour on both MacOS and Windows.

For example, on Mac:

• Create a file at ~/foo bar/test.md with the content of # test
• Running rmarkdown::pandoc_convert("~/foo bar/test.md") fails
• But running any of the following works:
  • rmarkdown::pandoc_convert("/Users/dean/foo bar/test.md")
  • rmarkdown::pandoc_convert(path.expand("~/foo bar/test.md"))

I'm not sure if the problem is with the pandoc software itself or with the rmarkdown function. Regardless, if the bug is in pandoc, then rmarkdown can perhaps fix this by always expanding tilde

[cderv]

I don't think pandoc does the expansion: jgm/pandoc#3135 and currently rmarkdown::pandoc_convert() does not do it either. It is a thin wrapper to pandoc and input is passed as-is to pandoc command line. All our functions that uses rmarkdown::pandoc_convert() does take care of the path, and usually we run pandoc from root folder of the Rmd file (changing the working directory for the rendering) to avoid any issue in path. Are you using pandoc_convert() directly ?

We could indeed normalize the path in this function for the input. 🤔

[daattali]

I am indeed using pandoc_convert (it's an exported function so I had no reason to think I shouldn't; is it not considered safe?) see here https://github.com/daattali/addinslist/blob/18dfef8c7f93dd9b7b2297622b34ce08e23e2271/R/utils.R#L32

I fixed the problem in my case by performing tilde expansion, but I think it would be good to solve it closer to the root = here

[cderv]

I am indeed using pandoc_convert (it's an exported function so I had no reason to think I shouldn't; is it not considered safe?)

I was just curious and check I did understood correctly. You can use it safely.

I fixed the problem in my case by performing tilde expansion, but I think it would be good to solve it closer to the root = here

Thanks for the suggestion that makes sense!