# Turning vcr on and off

#### 2025-03-07

    library(vcr)

Sometimes you may need to turn off `vcr`, either for individual function calls, individual test blocks, whole test files, or for the entire package. The following attempts to break down all the options.

`vcr` has the following four exported functions:

- `turned_off()` - Turns vcr off for the duration of a code block
- `turn_off()` - Turns vcr off completely, so that it no longer handles every HTTP request
- `turn_on()` - turns vcr on; the opposite of `turn_off()`
- `turned_on()` - Asks if vcr is turned on, returns a boolean

Instead of using the above four functions, you could use environment variables to achieve the same thing. This way you could enable/disable `vcr` in non-interactive environments such as continuous integration, Docker containers, or running R non-interactively from the command line. The full set of environment variables `vcr` uses, all of which accept only `TRUE` or `FALSE`:

- `VCR_TURN_OFF`: turn off vcr altogether; set to `TRUE` to skip any vcr usage; default: `FALSE`
- `VCR_TURNED_OFF`: set the `turned_off` internal package setting; this does not turn off vcr completely as does `VCR_TURN_OFF` does, but rather is looked at together with `VCR_IGNORE_CASSETTES`
- `VCR_IGNORE_CASSETTES`: set the `ignore_cassettes` internal package setting; this is looked at together with `VCR_TURNED_OFF`

## turned_off

`turned_off()` lets you temporarily make a real HTTP request without completely turning `vcr` off, unloading it, etc.

What happens internally is we turn off `vcr`, run your code block, then on exit turn `vcr` back on - such that `vcr` is only turned off for the duration of your code block. Even if your code block errors, `vcr` will be turned back on due to use of `on.exit(turn_on())`

    library(vcr)
    library(crul)
    turned_off({
      con <- HttpClient$new(url = "https://httpbin.org/get")
      con$get()
    })

    #> <crul response>
    #>   url: https://httpbin.org/get
    #>   request_headers:
    #>     User-Agent: libcurl/7.54.0 r-curl/4.3 crul/0.9.0
    #>     Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
    #>     Accept: application/json, text/xml, application/xml, */*
    #>   response_headers:
    #>     status: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    #>     date: Fri, 14 Feb 2020 19:44:46 GMT
    #>     content-type: application/json
    #>     content-length: 365
    #>     connection: keep-alive
    #>     server: gunicorn/19.9.0
    #>     access-control-allow-origin: *
    #>     access-control-allow-credentials: true
    #>   status: 200

## turn_off/turn_on

`turn_off()` is different from `turned_off()` in that `turn_off()` is not aimed at a single call block, but rather it turns `vcr` off for the entire package. `turn_off()` does check first before turning `vcr` off that there is not currently a cassette in use. `turn_off()` is meant to make R ignore `vcr::insert_cassette()` and `vcr::use_cassette()` blocks in your test suite - letting the code in the block run as if they were not wrapped in `vcr` code - so that all you have to do to run your tests with cached requests/responses AND with real HTTP requests is toggle a single R function or environment variable.

    library(vcr)
    vcr_configure(dir = tempdir())
    # real HTTP request works - vcr is not engaged here
    crul::HttpClient$new(url = "https://eu.httpbin.org/get")$get()
    # wrap HTTP request in use_cassette() - vcr is engaged here
    use_cassette("foo_bar", {
      crul::HttpClient$new(url = "https://eu.httpbin.org/get")$get()
    })
    # turn off & ignore cassettes - use_cassette is ignored, real HTTP request made
    turn_off(ignore_cassettes = TRUE)
    use_cassette("foo_bar", {
      crul::HttpClient$new(url = "https://eu.httpbin.org/get")$get()
    })
    # if you turn off and don't ignore cassettes, error thrown
    turn_off(ignore_cassettes = FALSE)
    use_cassette("foo_bar", {
      res2=crul::HttpClient$new(url = "https://eu.httpbin.org/get")$get()
    })
    # vcr back on - now use_cassette behaves as before
    turn_on()
    use_cassette("foo_bar3", {
      res2=crul::HttpClient$new(url = "https://eu.httpbin.org/get")$get()
    })

## turned_on

`turned_on()` does what it says on the tin - it tells you if `vcr` is turned on or not.

    library(vcr)
    turn_on()
    turned_on()
    #> [1] TRUE
    turn_off()
    #> vcr turned off; see ?turn_on to turn vcr back on
    turned_on()
    #> [1] FALSE

## Environment variables

The `VCR_TURN_OFF` environment variable can be used within R or on the command line to turn off `vcr`. For example, you can run tests for a package that uses `vcr`, but ignore any `use_cassette`/`insert_cassette` usage, by running this on the command line in the root of your package:

    VCR_TURN_OFF=true Rscript -e "devtools::test()"

Or, similarly within R:

    Sys.setenv(VCR_TURN_OFF = TRUE)
    devtools::test()

The `VCR_TURNED_OFF` and `VCR_IGNORE_CASSETTES` environment variables can be used in combination to achieve the same thing as `VCR_TURN_OFF`:

    VCR_TURNED_OFF=true VCR_IGNORE_CASSETTES=true Rscript -e "devtools::test()"