Connect to a local PostgreSQL database — pg_local

pg_local_connect creates a DBI connection to a PostgreSQL database on localhost using the modern RPostgres backend.

Usage

pg_local_connect(
  db = NULL,
  user = NULL,
  password = NULL,
  host = "localhost",
  port = 5432L
)

Arguments

db: (character) Database name. If NULL, missing, or empty, the function falls back to getOption("pg_local_db"), then PG_LOCAL_DB, then "caplter".
user: (character) PostgreSQL username. If NULL, missing, or empty, the function attempts to read DB_USER from the environment.
password: (character) PostgreSQL password. If NULL, missing, or empty, the function attempts to read DB_PASSWORD from the environment.
host: (character) PostgreSQL host name. Defaults to "localhost".
port: (integer) PostgreSQL port. Defaults to 5432.

Value

A DBIConnection object.

Details

Database selection precedence is:

explicit db argument,
R option pg_local_db,
environment variable PG_LOCAL_DB,
default "caplter".

User credential selection precedence is:

explicit user or password argument,
environment variables DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD.

This function is intended as a convenience helper for local development and data exploration workflows that need a PostgreSQL connection while keeping credentials outside the codebase.

Note

Set credentials in ~/.Renviron to avoid hardcoding them in scripts, for example:

DB_USER=your_username
DB_PASSWORD=your_password
PG_LOCAL_DB=caplter

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{

# use DB_USER / DB_PASSWORD from ~/.Renviron
pg <- pg_local_connect()

# change the default database for the current session
options(pg_local_db = "dev")
pg_dev <- pg_local_connect()

# override user and password explicitly
pg_override <- pg_local_connect(
  db       = "caplter",
  user     = "my_user",
  password = "my_password"
)

} # }