A bundle object with subclass bundled_workflow
.
Bundles are a list subclass with two components:
- object
An R object. Gives the output of native serialization
methods from the model-supplying package, sometimes with additional
classes or attributes that aid portability. This is often
a raw object.
- situate
A function. The situate()
function is defined when
bundle()
is called, though is a loose analogue of an unbundle()
S3
method for that object. Since the function is defined on bundle()
, it
has access to references and dependency information that can
be saved alongside the object
component. Calling unbundle()
on a
bundled object x
calls x$situate(x$object)
, returning the
unserialized version of object
. situate()
will also restore needed
references, such as server instances and environmental variables.
Bundles are R objects that represent a "standalone" version of their
analogous model object. Thus, bundles are ready for saving to a file; saving
with base::saveRDS()
is our recommended serialization strategy for bundles,
unless documented otherwise for a specific method.
To restore the original model object x
in a new environment, load its
bundle with base::readRDS()
and run unbundle()
on it. The output
of unbundle()
is a model object that is ready to predict()
on new data,
and other restored functionality (like plotting or summarizing) is supported
as a side effect only.
The bundle package wraps native serialization methods from model-supplying
packages. Between versions, those model-supplying packages may change their
native serialization methods, possibly introducing problems with re-loading
objects serialized with previous package versions. The bundle package does
not provide checks for these sorts of changes, and ought to be used in
conjunction with tooling for managing and monitoring model environments
like vetiver or renv.
See vignette("bundle")
for more information on bundling and its motivation.