Package 'rsurveycto'

Drop empty columns from a data.table

Description

An empty column is one whose only values are NA or "".

Usage

drop_empties(d)

Arguments

d	data.table.

Value

d modified by reference, invisibly.

Examples

library('data.table')
d = data.table(w = 3:4, x = c('', 'foo'), y = c(NA, NA), z = c(NA, ''))
drop_empties(d)

---

Authenticate with a SurveyCTO server

Description

SurveyCTO's API supports basic authentication using a username and password. Make sure the user is assigned a role with permission to download data ("data manager" or greater) and "Allow server API access" is enabled.

Usage

scto_auth(
  auth_file = NULL,
  servername = NULL,
  username = NULL,
  password = NULL,
  validate = TRUE
)

Arguments

auth_file	String indicating path to a text file containing the server name on the first line, username on the second, and password on the third. Other arguments are only used if auth_file is NULL.
servername	String indicating name of the SurveyCTO server.
username	String indicating username for the SurveyCTO account.
password	String indicating password for the SurveyCTO account.
validate	Logical indicating whether to validate credentials by calling scto_meta(). Should only be set to FALSE for debugging.

Value

scto_auth object for an authenticated SurveyCTO session.

Examples

## Not run: 
# preferred approach
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')

# alternate approach
auth = scto_auth('my_server', 'my_user', 'my_pw', auth_file = NULL)

## End(Not run)

---

Fetch file attachments from a SurveyCTO server

Description

This function can download encrypted and unencrypted files attached to forms.

Usage

scto_get_attachments(
  auth,
  urls,
  output_dir,
  private_key = NULL,
  overwrite = TRUE
)

Arguments

auth	scto_auth() object.
urls	Character vector of API URLs for file attachments. Will typically be derived from a column of a data.table returned by scto_read(). Can contain missing values.
output_dir	String indicating path to directory in which to save files.
private_key	String indicating path to private key file. Only needs to be non-NULL to decrypt encrypted file attachments.
overwrite	Logical indicating whether to overwrite existing files.

Value

A character vector of file names of the same length as urls, with NA for missing or invalid URLs.

Examples

## Not run: 
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')
form_data = scto_read(auth, 'my_form', 'form')
filenames = scto_get_attachments(auth, form_data[['my_attachment']], '.')

## End(Not run)

---

Fetch deployed form definitions from a SurveyCTO server

Description

This function fetches definitions for currently deployed forms. It has been superseded in favor of scto_get_form_metadata(), which fetches metadata, including defintions, for deployed and previous versions of forms.

Usage

scto_get_form_definitions(auth, form_ids = NULL, simplify = TRUE)

Arguments

auth	scto_auth() object.
form_ids	Character vector indicating the form ids. NULL indicates all forms.
simplify	Logical indicating whether to return the definition for one form as a simple list instead of a named, nested list.

Value

If simplify is TRUE and getting one form definition, a list. Otherwise a named list of lists containing the definition for each form.

Examples

## Not run: 
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')
form_def = scto_get_form_definitions(auth, 'my_form')
form_defs = scto_get_form_definitions(auth)

## End(Not run)

---

Fetch form metadata from a SurveyCTO server

Description

This function fetches metadata, including form definitions, for deployed and previous versions of one or more forms.

Usage

scto_get_form_metadata(
  auth,
  form_ids = NULL,
  deployed_only = FALSE,
  get_defs = TRUE
)

Arguments

auth	scto_auth() object.
form_ids	Character vector indicating the form ids. NULL indicates all forms.
deployed_only	Logical indicating whether to fetch metadata for all versions of each form, or only for the deployed version.
get_defs	Logical indicating whether to fetch form definitions.

Value

A data.table with one row per form (and per version, if deployed_only is FALSE). Definitions are returned as nested data.tables, which can be unnested using scto_unnest_form_definitions().

Examples

## Not run: 
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')
form_metadata = scto_get_form_metadata(auth, 'my_form')
form_defs = scto_unnest_form_definitions(form_metadata)

## End(Not run)

---

Read metadata from a SurveyCTO server

Description

These functions read metadata from a SurveyCTO server.

Usage

scto_meta(auth)

scto_catalog(auth)

Arguments

auth	scto_auth() object.

Value

scto_meta() returns a nested list of metadata related to forms, datasets, groups, and publishing information. scto_catalog() returns a data.table with one row per form or dataset.

Examples

## Not run: 
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')
metadata = scto_meta(auth)
catalog = scto_catalog(auth)

## End(Not run)

---

Suppress or permit messages from rsurveycto

Description

By default, rsurveycto prints messages to the console. To suppress them, set the rsurveycto_quiet option to TRUE or use this function.

Usage

scto_quiet(quiet = NULL)

Arguments

quiet

A logical indicating whether to suppress messages, or NULL.

Value

If quiet is NULL, the current value of the rsurveycto_quiet option. Otherwise, the previous value of the rsurveycto_quiet option invisibly.

Examples

options(rsurveycto_quiet = TRUE)
scto_quiet()
scto_quiet(FALSE)

---

Read data from a SurveyCTO server

Description

This function can read datasets and forms.

Usage

scto_read(
  auth,
  ids = NULL,
  start_date = as.POSIXct("1900-01-01", tz = "UTC"),
  review_status = "approved",
  private_key = NULL,
  drop_empty_cols = FALSE,
  convert_datetime = c("CompletionDate", "SubmissionDate", "starttime", "endtime"),
  datetime_format = "%b %e, %Y %I:%M:%S %p",
  simplify = TRUE
)

Arguments

auth	scto_auth() object.
ids	Character vector indicating ids of the datasets and/or forms. NULL indicates all datasets and forms.
start_date	Date-time or something coercible to a date-time indicating the earliest date-time (UTC timezone) for which to fetch data. Only used for forms. Use with caution, because fields that are deleted prior to start_date will not show up, even if submissions prior to start_date have data for those fields.
review_status	String or character vector indicating which submissions to fetch. Possible values are "approved", "pending", "rejected", or any combination of the three. Only used for forms.
private_key	String indicating path to private key file. Only needs to be non-NULL to read encrypted form data.
drop_empty_cols	Logical indicating whether to drop columns that contain only NA or only an empty string.
convert_datetime	Character vector of column names in the data for which to convert strings to datetimes (POSIXct). Use NULL to not convert any columns to datetimes.
datetime_format	String indicating format of datetimes from SurveyCTO. See strptime().
simplify	Logical indicating whether to return only a data.table instead of a list of data.tables if reading one form or dataset.

Value

If simplify is TRUE and reading one form or dataset, a data.table. Otherwise a named list of data.tables, one for each form and dataset, along with a data.table named ".catalog" from scto_catalog().

Examples

## Not run: 
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')
form_data = scto_read(auth, 'my_form')
all_data = scto_read(auth)

## End(Not run)

---

Unnest previously fetched form definitions

Description

This function unnests form definitions, e.g., from multiple versions of a form, which can make it easier to map values to labels in a later step.

Usage

scto_unnest_form_definitions(form_metadata, by_form_id = TRUE)

Arguments

form_metadata	data.table returned by scto_get_form_metadata().
by_form_id	Logical indicating whether to unnest definitions of multiple versions of a given form (default), or to unnest definitions of all forms together.

Value

If by_form_id is TRUE, a data.table of data.tables for the survey, choices, and settings components of the form definitions. Otherwise a list of data.tables.

Examples

## Not run: 
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')
form_metadata = scto_get_form_metadata(auth, 'my_form')
form_defs = scto_unnest_form_definitions(form_metadata)

## End(Not run)

---

Write data to a SurveyCTO server

Description

This function updates an existing dataset using a web POST request, as uploading data is not officially supported by the SurveyCTO API.

Usage

scto_write(
  auth,
  data,
  dataset_id,
  dataset_title = dataset_id,
  append = FALSE,
  fill = FALSE
)

Arguments

auth	scto_auth() object.
data	data.frame to upload.
dataset_id	String indicating id of existing dataset.
dataset_title	String indicating title of dataset. Will replace the existing title, regardless of append.
append	Logical indicating whether to append or replace the dataset.
fill	Logical indicating whether to implicitly fill missing columns with NA, i.e., whether to allow a mismatch between columns of the existing dataset and columns of data. Only used if append is TRUE.

Value

A list with elements:

• data_old: A data.table of the previous version of the dataset.

• response: An object of class httr::response() from the POST request.

Examples

## Not run: 
auth = scto_auth('scto_auth.txt')
r = scto_write(auth, data, 'my_dataset', 'My Dataset')

## End(Not run)

---