A future is an abstraction for a value that may
available at some point in the future. A future can either be
unresolved or resolved, a state which can be checked
with resolved(). As long as it is unresolved, the
value is not available. As soon as it is resolved, the value
is available via value().
Future(
expr = NULL,
envir = parent.frame(),
substitute = TRUE,
stdout = TRUE,
conditions = "condition",
globals = NULL,
packages = NULL,
seed = FALSE,
lazy = FALSE,
local = TRUE,
gc = FALSE,
earlySignal = FALSE,
label = NULL,
...
)Future() returns an object of class Future.
An R expression.
The environment from where global objects should be identified.
If TRUE, argument expr is
substitute():ed, otherwise not.
If TRUE (default), then the standard output is captured,
and re-outputted when value() is called.
If FALSE, any output is silenced (by sinking it to the null device as
it is outputted).
Using stdout = structure(TRUE, drop = TRUE) causes the captured
standard output to be dropped from the future object as soon as it has
been relayed. This can help decrease the overall memory consumed by
captured output across futures.
Using stdout = NA (not recommended) avoids intercepting the standard
output; behavior of such unhandled standard output depends on the future
A character string of conditions classes to be captured
and relayed. The default is to relay all conditions, including messages
and warnings. To drop all conditions, use conditions = character(0).
Errors are always relayed.
Attribute exclude can be used to ignore specific classes, e.g.
conditions = structure("condition", exclude = "message") will capture
all condition classes except those that inherits from the message class.
Using conditions = structure(..., drop = TRUE) causes any captured
conditions to be dropped from the future object as soon as it has
been relayed, e.g. by value(f). This can help decrease the overall
memory consumed by captured conditions across futures.
Using conditions = NULL (not recommended) avoids intercepting conditions,
except from errors; behavior of such unhandled conditions depends on the
future backend and the environment from which R runs.
(optional) a logical, a character vector, or a named list
to control how globals are handled.
For details, see section 'Globals used by future expressions'
in the help for future().
(optional) a character vector specifying packages to be attached in the R environment evaluating the future.
(optional) If TRUE, the random seed, that is, the state of the
random number generator (RNG) will be set such that statistically sound
random numbers are produced (also during parallelization).
If FALSE (default), it is assumed that the future expression does neither
need nor use random numbers generation.
To use a fixed random seed, specify a L'Ecuyer-CMRG seed (seven integer)
or a regular RNG seed (a single integer). If the latter, then a
L'Ecuyer-CMRG seed will be automatically created based on the given seed.
Furthermore, if FALSE, then the future will be monitored to make sure it
does not use random numbers. If it does and depending on the value of
option future.rng.onMisuse, the check is
ignored, an informative warning, or error will be produced.
If seed is NULL, then the effect is as with seed = FALSE
but without the RNG check being performed.
If FALSE (default), the future is resolved eagerly (starting immediately), otherwise not.
If TRUE, the expression is evaluated such that all assignments are done to local temporary environment, otherwise the assignments are done to the global environment of the R process evaluating the future.
If TRUE, the garbage collector run (in the process that
evaluated the future) only after the value of the future is collected.
Exactly when the values are collected may depend on various factors such
as number of free workers and whether earlySignal is TRUE (more
frequently) or FALSE (less frequently).
Some types of futures ignore this argument.
Specified whether conditions should be signaled as soon as possible or not.
An optional character string label attached to the future.
Additional named elements of the future.
A Future object is itself an environment.
One function that creates a Future is future().
It returns a Future that evaluates an R expression in the future.
An alternative approach is to use the %<-% infix
assignment operator, which creates a future from the
right-hand-side (RHS) R expression and assigns its future value
to a variable as a promise.