ntfy (pronounce: notify) is a simple HTTP-based pub-sub notification service. It allows you to send notifications to your phone or desktop via scripts from any computer, entirely without signup, cost or setup. It’s also open source if you want to run your own. Visit ntfy.sh for more details.
{ntfy} is a lightweight R wrapper for this service. The magic sauce
is just POST and GET calls equivalent to
curl -d "Process Complete 😀" ntfy.sh/yourSecretTopic but made to work nicely in an R workflow.
You can install the development version of ntfy like so:
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("jonocarroll/ntfy")Follow the instructions at ntfy.sh to install any of the mobile apps or use the web app. No sign-up or account is necessary.
Choose a topic (note: this isn’t a password-protected service, so choose something obscure) and subscribe to it on your device.
Add the topic as an environment variable, e.g.
usethis::edit_r_environ()
[...]
NTFY_TOPIC='yourSecretTopic'
#NTFY_SERVER='https://ntfy.sh'The server will automatically be set to https://ntfy.sh unless you specify another.
This can be confirmed with
ntfy_server()
#> [1] "https://ntfy.sh"With the package loaded, you can now send notifications which should appear on your device
library(ntfy)
ntfy_send("test from R!")
#> <httr2_response>
#> POST https://ntfy.sh/jonocarroll_ntfy_testing
#> Status: 200 OK
#> Content-Type: application/json
#> Body: In memory (152 bytes)This can be used in many ways. One would be to notify the completion
of a process. The ntfy_done() function sends a notification
with the (default) body
Process completed at <Sys.time()>slow_process <- function(x) {
Sys.sleep(8) # sleep for 8 seconds
x
}
mtcars |>
head() |>
slow_process() |>
ntfy_done()
#> mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
#> Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46 0 1 4 4
#> Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02 0 1 4 4
#> Datsun 710 22.8 4 108 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
#> Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44 1 0 3 1
#> Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02 0 0 3 2
#> Valiant 18.1 6 225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22 1 0 3 1which results in a notification on subscribed devices
Process completed at 2023-07-04 17:00When using the base R pipe |> the piped commands are
composed together by the parser, so
f() |>
g() |>
h()becomes
h(g(f()))We can use this fact to time the running of a process if the last
function (above, h()) is system.time(). The
ntfy_done_with_timing() function does exactly this
mtcars |>
head() |>
slow_process() |>
ntfy_done_with_timing()
#> mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
#> Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46 0 1 4 4
#> Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02 0 1 4 4
#> Datsun 710 22.8 4 108 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
#> Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44 1 0 3 1
#> Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02 0 0 3 2
#> Valiant 18.1 6 225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22 1 0 3 1which sends the notification
Process completed in 8.003sNote: the {magrittr} pipe %>% works differently and
does not compose the same way, so this will result in a very short time
report. Wrapping an entire pipeline with
ntfy_done_with_timing() will work, though
library(magrittr)
ntfy_done_with_timing(
mtcars %>%
head() %>%
slow_process()
)
#> mpg cyl disp hp drat wt qsec vs am gear carb
#> Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46 0 1 4 4
#> Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02 0 1 4 4
#> Datsun 710 22.8 4 108 93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
#> Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44 1 0 3 1
#> Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02 0 0 3 2
#> Valiant 18.1 6 225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22 1 0 3 1sends
Process completed in 8.004sIf you’re using a topic on a server that requires authentication, you
can pass auth = TRUE, along with a username and
password:
ntfy_send(
"test from R!",
auth = TRUE,
username = "example",
password = "super-secret-password"
)Alternatively, you can set these as environment variables and they’ll
get used by ntfy_send() automatically:
usethis::edit_r_environ()
[...]
NTFY_AUTH='TRUE'
NTFY_USERNAME='example'
NTFY_PASSWORD='super-secret-password'ntfy_send("test from R!")The history of the notifications sent can be retrieved as well, with control over how far back to search
ntfy_history(since = "1h")#> id time event topic
#> 1 0oDpk4oisfNO 1667988383 message yourSecretTopic
#> 2 4Fcy9kIL0m6Z 1667988413 message yourSecretTopic
#> 3 AGXn4q0CirFT 1667990983 message yourSecretTopic
#> message
#> 1 test from R!
#> 2 Process completed at 2022-11-09 17:31:03
#> 3 Process completed in 8.003sThe full ntfy.sh API should be supported, including sending a title and tags
Images can be sent within notifications by specifying as
image either the filename or a ggplot2 object
(which will be saved to a temporary file)
library(ggplot2)
#>
#> Attaching package: 'ggplot2'
#> The following object is masked from 'package:base':
#>
#> is.element
p <- ggplot(mtcars, (aes(mpg, wt))) +
geom_point() +
geom_smooth() +
labs(title = "ggplot images in {ntfy}")
ntfy_send("ggplot2 images in notifications!",
tags = c("tada", "chart"),
image = p)
#> Saving 7 x 5 in image
#> `geom_smooth()` using method = 'loess' and formula = 'y ~ x'
#> <httr2_response>
#>
#> POST https://ntfy.sh/jonocarroll_ntfy_testing
#>
#> Status: 200 OK
#>
#> Content-Type: application/json
#>
#> Body: In memory (335 bytes)Supported tags (emoji) can be sent with the tags
argument (one or more). These can be searched or shown with
show_emoji() which will look for a given name in the
compatible values, or search for it in the compatible metadata.
The compatible data is stored as emoji
data("emoji")
head(emoji)
#> # A tibble: 6 × 6
#> emoji aliases tags category description unicode_version
#> <chr> <chr> <list> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 👎 -1 <chr [2]> People & Body thumbs down 6.0
#> 2 👍 +1 <chr [2]> People & Body thumbs up 6.0
#> 3 💯 100 <chr [2]> Smileys & Emotion hundred poi… 6.0
#> 4 🔢 1234 <chr [1]> Symbols input numbe… 6.0
#> 5 🥇 1st_place_medal <chr [1]> Activities 1st place m… 9.0
#> 6 🥈 2nd_place_medal <chr [1]> Activities 2nd place m… 9.0with the tags stored as tags for easy auto-complete
ntfy_send(message = "sending with tags!",
tags = c(tags$cat, tags$dog)
)
#> <httr2_response>
#> POST https://ntfy.sh/jonocarroll_ntfy_testing
#> Status: 200 OK
#> Content-Type: application/json
#> Body: In memory (179 bytes)The compatible emoji can be shown with
show_emoji("rofl")
#>
#> 🤣 rofl
#> If the name is not found in aliases (the compatible
names) it will be searched in tags
show_emoji("lol")
#> Unable to find that name directly.
#> Did you perhaps want...
#>
#> 🤣 rofl
#>
show_emoji("pet")
#> Unable to find that name directly.
#> Did you perhaps want...
#>
#> 🐱 cat
#> 🐶 dog
#> 🐹 hamster
#> You can force this behaviour with
show_emoji("dog", search = TRUE)
#>
#> 🐶 dog
#>
#> Did you perhaps want...
#>
#> 🐩 poodle
#> Q: “Will you know what topics exist, can you spy on me?”
A: Refer to the FAQ
If this service is useful to you, consider donating to the developer via GitHub sponsors. If this package is useful to you, I also accept donations via GitHub sponsors.