R help - May 2011 - Downloading a csv from Dropbox using the shareable link

Hello Kindred R Spirits...

I'm trying to get a file (csv) from Dropbox using their shareable link  
concept.  They issue a short URL that goes to a web page where you see  
a button that says "Download File".  They don't really give you
the
URL of the file itself, just this page.  Is there a way to coax R into  
getting such a file?  I don't even really want the file per se, I just  
want a path to the file so I can reference it for Sweave purposes and  
read the contents into an object.  Seems like a job for RCurl but I  
have little experience and this seems like an odd case anyway.

By the way, I want to do this as a way to have several people on  
different computers run a .Rnw file that needs to access common data  
set w/o changing the path to the file each time a different person  
opens the file and works on it.  Perhaps there is another way of doing  
this.

Thanks for any suggestions.  Bryan
****************
Prof. Bryan Hanson
Dept of Chemistry & Biochemistry
DePauw University
Greencastle IN 46135 USA

The problem is that dropbox sharable links unpack to https URIs, and R
doesn't support secture http (at least not on Mac, not sure about other
platforms).


Would be great to compile the read.table etc. functions to use curl when it is
installed, as curl supports a myriad of protocols.

Rcurl package seems to does this (but not on windows)

http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RCurl/RCurl.pdf

If your friends all use dropbox, they can get a common local path with something
like "~Dropbox/file.Rnw"

t

On 20 May 2011, at 19:05, Bryan Hanson wrote:
> Hello Kindred R Spirits...
> 
> I'm trying to get a file (csv) from Dropbox using their shareable link
concept.  They issue a short URL that goes to a web page where you see a button
that says "Download File".  They don't really give you the URL of
the file itself, just this page.  Is there a way to coax R into getting such a
file?  I don't even really want the file per se, I just want a path to the
file so I can reference it for Sweave purposes and read the contents into an
object.  Seems like a job for RCurl but I have little experience and this seems
like an odd case anyway.
> 
> By the way, I want to do this as a way to have several people on different
computers run a .Rnw file that needs to access common data set w/o changing the
path to the file each time a different person opens the file and works on it. 
Perhaps there is another way of doing this.

On Fri, 20-May-2011 at 02:05PM -0400, Bryan Hanson wrote:
> Hello Kindred R Spirits...
>
> I'm trying to get a file (csv) from Dropbox using their shareable link
> concept.  They issue a short URL that goes to a web page where you see a 
> button that says "Download File".  They don't really give you
the URL of
> the file itself, just this page.  Is there a way to coax R into getting 
> such a file?  I don't even really want the file per se, I just want a 
Dropbox allows you to share folders with other Dropbox users who would
then have access to your file/s as a file/s on their individual
computers.  It would mean that any collaborator would have to have a
Dropbox account and they'd all end up downloading the file.  If there
aren't too many for you to individually invite and it's not excessive
bandwidth for them to download that many copies of the file, it would
be easily done.  (You might even get yourself some more diskspace on
Dropbox by inviting other users.)

You'd have to think about whose version has what effect on others but
without knowing your objectives, it's impossible for me to say what's
the best approach.

HTH


> path to the file so I can reference it for Sweave purposes and read the 
> contents into an object.  Seems like a job for RCurl but I have little 
> experience and this seems like an odd case anyway.
>
> By the way, I want to do this as a way to have several people on  
> different computers run a .Rnw file that needs to access common data set 
> w/o changing the path to the file each time a different person opens the 
> file and works on it.  Perhaps there is another way of doing this.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions.  Bryan
> ****************
> Prof. Bryan Hanson
> Dept of Chemistry & Biochemistry
> DePauw University
> Greencastle IN 46135 USA
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
-- 
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.   
   ___    Patrick Connolly   
 {~._.~}                   Great minds discuss ideas    
 _( Y )_  	         Average minds discuss events 
(:_~*~_:)                  Small minds discuss people  
 (_)-(_)  	                      ..... Eleanor Roosevelt
	  
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Thanks Ian, not too late at all.  I need to do some testing but your  
idea seems like it should work.  Thanks, Bryan

On May 23, 2011, at 12:44 PM, Ian Gow wrote:
> This might be a little late, but one option for this issue might be  
> to add
> a line like
>  Sys.setenv("DROPBOX_PATH" = "/Users/PersonA/Dropbox/")
> to Person A's .Rprofile (on my Mac, this is in my home directory)  
> and the
> equivalent (mutatis mutandis) to Person B's .Rprofile and then use
>  Sys.getenv("DROPBOX_PATH")
> to access the path. It seems from looking at forums for Dropbox that  
> there
> is no easily accessed environment variable that Dropbox sets for the  
> path
> to the Dropbox folder.
>
> -- 
> Ian Gow
> Accounting Information and Management
> Kellogg School of Management
> Northwestern University
> 2001 Sheridan Rd, Rm 6229
> Evanston, IL 60208-2002
> Phone: +1-847-467-4508
> i-gow at kellogg.northwestern.edu
>
> [R] Downloading a csv from Dropbox using the shareable linkBryan  
> Hanson
> hanson at depauw.edu
>
<mailto:r-help%40r-project.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BR%5D%20Downloading%20a%20
> csv%20from%20Dropbox%20using%20the%20shareable%20link&In-Reply-To= 
> %3C04D199
> AF-8868-4C5E-A47D-1A21C22D0508%40depauw.edu%3E>
> Sat May 21 03:17:42 CEST 2011
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> ________________________________________
> Hi Patrick, here is the set up:
>
> Everyone is already sharing all the files and has full access.  We
> have an Rnw file which generates a report and uses a csv file in a
> "nearby" directory.  Dropbox keeps it all sync'd.  But, if
Person A is
> working on the file on their computer the path to the data would be
> (Mac OSX) /Users/PersonA/Dropbox/Project/data.csv  However, to Person
> B the path would be /Users/PersonB/Dropbox/data.csv  I'm looking for a
> way to keep the path to data.csv universal and independent of who is
> actually using the file.  That's why I was looking at the
"shareable
> link" feature on Dropbox.
>
> I guess I see two solutions (partially answering my own question now).
>
> 1.  Keep the data file in the same directory as the report and I don't
> think there would be any problems.
> 2. In the Rnw file, use a relative  path.  I know you can do this for
> instance when you specify where the graphics go.  I suppose the same
> approach would allow me to specify the path as going up one level and
> then down into a different directory.  As long as I bury these folders
> deep enough that I don't have to use a relative path that ever hits
> the "PersonX" level I suppose it will work.
>
> I'll try it out.  Further suggestions welcome.  Thanks, Bryan
>
> On May 20, 2011, at 8:24 PM, Patrick Connolly wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 20-May-2011 at 02:05PM -0400, Bryan Hanson wrote:
>>>> Hello Kindred R Spirits...
>>>>> I'm trying to get a file (csv) from Dropbox using their
shareable
>>> link
>>> concept.  They issue a short URL that goes to a web page where you
>>> see a
>>> button that says "Download File".  They don't really
give you the
>>> URL of
>>> the file itself, just this page.  Is there a way to coax R into
>>> getting
>>> such a file?  I don't even really want the file per se, I just
>>> want a
>>> Dropbox allows you to share folders with other Dropbox users who  
>>> would
>> then have access to your file/s as a file/s on their individual
>> computers.  It would mean that any collaborator would have to have a
>> Dropbox account and they'd all end up downloading the file.  If
there
>> aren't too many for you to individually invite and it's not
excessive
>> bandwidth for them to download that many copies of the file, it would
>> be easily done.  (You might even get yourself some more diskspace on
>> Dropbox by inviting other users.)
>>> You'd have to think about whose version has what effect on
others
>>> but
>> without knowing your objectives, it's impossible for me to say
what's
>> the best approach.
>>> HTH
>>>>>> path to the file so I can reference it for Sweave
purposes and
>>>>>> read
>>> the
>>> contents into an object.  Seems like a job for RCurl but I have
>>> little
>>> experience and this seems like an odd case anyway.
>>>>> By the way, I want to do this as a way to have several
people on
>>> different computers run a .Rnw file that needs to access common
>>> data set
>>> w/o changing the path to the file each time a different person
>>> opens the
>>> file and works on it.  Perhaps there is another way of doing this.
>>>>> Thanks for any suggestions.  Bryan
>>> ****************
>>> Prof. Bryan Hanson
>>> Dept of Chemistry & Biochemistry
>>> DePauw University
>>> Greencastle IN 46135 USA
>>>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org
<https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> >
>>> mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help>> PLEASE do read
the
>>> posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html>>
and
>>> provide
>>> commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>> -- 
>> ~
>> .~
>> .~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
>>  ___    Patrick Connolly
>> {~._.~}                   Great minds discuss ideas
>> _( Y )_  	         Average minds discuss events
>> (:_~*~_:)                  Small minds discuss people
>> (_)-(_)  	                      ..... Eleanor Roosevelt
>> 	
>> ~
>> .~
>> .~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
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