Shiny interactive document download button overwrites original R markdown - r

Question

So I'm trying to write an html R markdown document with interactive shiny bits that allow the user to edit a graph and then download the results to a pdf. However, there is something catastrophically wrong with the way that I'm trying to do this because as soon as the html starts, it overwrites the original markdown file with the contents of the pdf - turning it into complete gibberish right in the editor.
I doubt that I've found a completely new way to fail at R but I haven't been able to find where anybody else has had this issue. Additionally, I've looked over the shiny reference material and I'm just going in circles at this point, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
I'm using Rstudio 1.0.44, rmarkdown 1.2 and shiny 0.14.2. A small (not)working example:
---
title: "Minimum Failing Example"
author: "wittyalias"
date: "December 5, 2016"
output: html_document
runtime: shiny
---
```{r echo = FALSE}
library(ggplot2)
today <- Sys.Date()
inputPanel(downloadButton("dnld", label = "Download pdf"))
renderPlot({
# Example code from http://www.cookbook-r.com/Graphs/Multiple_graphs_on_one_page_(ggplot2)/
p1 <<- ggplot(ChickWeight, aes(x=Time, y=weight, colour=Diet, group=Chick)) +
geom_line() +
ggtitle("Growth curve for individual chicks")
p1
})
reactive({
fname <- paste0("Chick Weight - ", today, ".pdf")
output$dnld <- downloadHandler(filename = fname,
content = makethepdf(file))
makethepdf <- function(fname) {
pdf(fname,
width = 14,
height = 8.5)
p1
dev.off()
}
})
```
EDIT: To be clear: I want the user to be able to download multiple pages of graphs, some of which will have different formatting. The user won't be downloading just a pdf version of the markdown document.

Answer 1

This happens because reasons I weren't able to identify makethepdf runs with the file = [name of the file]. Insert a print(fname) to see. The download handler isn't supposed to be inside an observer though. You need to have it outside on its own. I also failed to make pdf() dev.off() combination work for some reason so here's a working version below.
output$dnld = downloadHandler(filename = paste0("Chick Weight - ", today, ".pdf"),
content = function(file){
ggsave(file, plot = p1, width = 14, height = 8.5)
})

Answer 2

Use tempfile() and tempdir() to create a temporary file:
output$downloadReport = downloadHandler(
filename = function() {
normalizePath(tempfile("report_", fileext = ".docx"), winslash = "/")
},
content = function(file) {
out = rmarkdown::render("./report.Rmd",
output_file = file,
output_dir = tempdir(),
output_format = "pdf_document",
intermediates_dir = tempdir(),
envir = new.env(),
params = list( fontSize = 10)
)
})
I usually use a separate .Rmd template for my downloaded reports as the layout and text are usually similar but not identical to what works in an app.
I also find using parameters is a convenient way to pass input settings from my app to my report. See this RStudio post for details

Answer 3

Alright, so there are a number of problems with my code, but using some of the suggestions in the other answers I've been able to work it out.
The primary problem with this little document is that content in the downloadHandler is a function, but in my code I set content equal to the result of a function call. It looks like when the shiny app is first run it compiles content, thinking that it is a function, but actually ends up calling the function. It sends file as an arguement, which doesn't seem to exist except as a base function. Calling makethepdf with just file throws an error when I use it in the console, but for whatever reason in this app it just goes with the call, apparently with file = [name of the .Rmd] (just as OganM said).
To fix, change this:
output$dnld <- downloadHandler(filename = fname,
content = makethepdf(file))
to
output$dnld <- downloadHandler(filename = fname,
content = makethepdf)
To be clear: this code does not overwrite the .Rmd file if content calls makethepdf with any argument other than file. For instance, content = makethepdf(fnm)) causes the download button to display an object not found error and content = makethepdf(fname)) causes the download button to throw an attempt to apply non-function error when pressed.