Conditionally display a block of text in R Markdown

Question

I am using knitr to parse an R Markdown document . Is there a way to conditionally display a block of text in R Markdown depending on a variable in the environment I pass i

Answer 1

I find it easiest to do this by putting all of my text into a separate file and then include it from the main file with:

```{r conditional_print, child='text.Rmd', eval = show_text}
```

This has the advantage that you can still put inline R statements or other chunks into the child file, so that if you change your mind about what counts as optional text, you don't have to refactor your project.