README.md

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Google Sheets R API

Access and manage Google spreadsheets from R with googlesheets.

Features:

googlesheets is inspired by gspread, a Google Spreadsheets Python API

The exuberant prose in this README is inspired by Tabletop.js: If you've ever wanted to get data in or out of a Google Spreadsheet from R without jumping through a thousand hoops, welcome home!

Install googlesheets

The released version is available on CRAN

install.packages("googlesheets")

Or you can get the development version from GitHub:

devtools::install_github("jennybc/googlesheets")

Vignettes

GitHub versions:

Talks

Load googlesheets

googlesheets is designed for use with the %>% pipe operator and, to a lesser extent, the data-wrangling mentality of dplyr. This README uses both, but the examples in the help files emphasize usage with plain vanilla R, if that's how you roll. googlesheets uses dplyr internally but does not require the user to do so. You can make the %>% pipe operator available in your own work by loading dplyr or magrittr.

library("googlesheets")
suppressPackageStartupMessages(library("dplyr"))

Function naming convention

To play nicely with tab completion, we use consistent prefixes:

Quick demo

Here's how to get a copy of a Gapminder-based Sheet we publish for practicing and follow along. You'll be sent to the browser to authenticate yourself with Google at this point.

gs_gap() %>% 
  gs_copy(to = "Gapminder")
## or, if you don't use pipes
gs_copy(gs_gap(), to = "Gapminder")

Register a Sheet (in this case, by title):

gap <- gs_title("Gapminder")
#> Sheet successfully identified: "Gapminder"

Here's a registered googlesheet object:

gap
#>                   Spreadsheet title: Gapminder
#>                  Spreadsheet author: gspreadr
#>   Date of googlesheets registration: 2017-05-06 19:37:34 GMT
#>     Date of last spreadsheet update: 2015-03-23 20:34:08 GMT
#>                          visibility: private
#>                         permissions: rw
#>                             version: new
#> 
#> Contains 5 worksheets:
#> (Title): (Nominal worksheet extent as rows x columns)
#> Africa: 625 x 6
#> Americas: 301 x 6
#> Asia: 397 x 6
#> Europe: 361 x 6
#> Oceania: 25 x 6
#> 
#> Key: 1HT5B8SgkKqHdqHJmn5xiuaC04Ngb7dG9Tv94004vezA
#> Browser URL: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HT5B8SgkKqHdqHJmn5xiuaC04Ngb7dG9Tv94004vezA/

Visit a registered googlesheet in the browser:

gap %>% gs_browse()
gap %>% gs_browse(ws = "Europe")

Read all the data in a worksheet:

africa <- gs_read(gap)
#> Accessing worksheet titled 'Africa'.
#> Parsed with column specification:
#> cols(
#>   country = col_character(),
#>   continent = col_character(),
#>   year = col_integer(),
#>   lifeExp = col_double(),
#>   pop = col_integer(),
#>   gdpPercap = col_double()
#> )
glimpse(africa)
#> Observations: 624
#> Variables: 6
#> $ country   <chr> "Algeria", "Algeria", "Algeria", "Algeria", "Algeria...
#> $ continent <chr> "Africa", "Africa", "Africa", "Africa", "Africa", "A...
#> $ year      <int> 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992...
#> $ lifeExp   <dbl> 43.077, 45.685, 48.303, 51.407, 54.518, 58.014, 61.3...
#> $ pop       <int> 9279525, 10270856, 11000948, 12760499, 14760787, 171...
#> $ gdpPercap <dbl> 2449.008, 3013.976, 2550.817, 3246.992, 4182.664, 49...
africa
#> # A tibble: 624 × 6
#>    country continent  year lifeExp      pop gdpPercap
#>      <chr>     <chr> <int>   <dbl>    <int>     <dbl>
#>  1 Algeria    Africa  1952  43.077  9279525  2449.008
#>  2 Algeria    Africa  1957  45.685 10270856  3013.976
#>  3 Algeria    Africa  1962  48.303 11000948  2550.817
#>  4 Algeria    Africa  1967  51.407 12760499  3246.992
#>  5 Algeria    Africa  1972  54.518 14760787  4182.664
#>  6 Algeria    Africa  1977  58.014 17152804  4910.417
#>  7 Algeria    Africa  1982  61.368 20033753  5745.160
#>  8 Algeria    Africa  1987  65.799 23254956  5681.359
#>  9 Algeria    Africa  1992  67.744 26298373  5023.217
#> 10 Algeria    Africa  1997  69.152 29072015  4797.295
#> # ... with 614 more rows

Some of the many ways to target specific cells:

gap %>% gs_read(ws = 2, range = "A1:D8")
gap %>% gs_read(ws = "Europe", range = cell_rows(1:4))
gap %>% gs_read(ws = "Africa", range = cell_cols(1:4))

Full readr-style control of data ingest -- highly artificial example!

gap %>%
  gs_read(ws = "Oceania", col_names = paste0("Z", 1:6),
          na = c("1962", "1977"), col_types = "cccccc", skip = 1, n_max = 7)
#> Accessing worksheet titled 'Oceania'.
#> # A tibble: 7 × 6
#>          Z1      Z2    Z3    Z4       Z5       Z6
#>       <chr>   <chr> <chr> <chr>    <chr>    <chr>
#> 1 Australia Oceania  1952 69.12  8691212  10039.6
#> 2 Australia Oceania  1957 70.33  9712569 10949.65
#> 3 Australia Oceania  <NA> 70.93 10794968 12217.23
#> 4 Australia Oceania  1967  71.1 11872264 14526.12
#> 5 Australia Oceania  1972 71.93 13177000 16788.63
#> 6 Australia Oceania  <NA> 73.49 14074100  18334.2
#> 7 Australia Oceania  1982 74.74 15184200 19477.01

Create a new Sheet from an R object:

iris_ss <- gs_new("iris", input = head(iris, 3), trim = TRUE)
#> Warning: At least one sheet matching "iris" already exists, so you may
#> need to identify by key, not title, in future.
#> Sheet "iris" created in Google Drive.
#> Range affected by the update: "R1C1:R4C5"
#> Worksheet "Sheet1" successfully updated with 20 new value(s).
#> Accessing worksheet titled 'Sheet1'.
#> Sheet successfully identified: "iris"
#> Accessing worksheet titled 'Sheet1'.
#> Worksheet "Sheet1" dimensions changed to 4 x 5.
#> Worksheet dimensions: 4 x 5.

Edit some arbitrary cells and append a row:

iris_ss <- iris_ss %>% 
  gs_edit_cells(input = c("what", "is", "a", "sepal", "anyway?"),
                anchor = "A2", byrow = TRUE)
#> Range affected by the update: "R2C1:R2C5"
#> Worksheet "Sheet1" successfully updated with 5 new value(s).
iris_ss <- iris_ss %>% 
  gs_add_row(input = c("sepals", "support", "the", "petals", "!!"))
#> Row successfully appended.

Look at what we have wrought:

iris_ss %>% 
  gs_read()
#> Accessing worksheet titled 'Sheet1'.
#> Parsed with column specification:
#> cols(
#>   Sepal.Length = col_character(),
#>   Sepal.Width = col_character(),
#>   Petal.Length = col_character(),
#>   Petal.Width = col_character(),
#>   Species = col_character()
#> )
#> # A tibble: 4 × 5
#>   Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#>          <chr>       <chr>        <chr>       <chr>   <chr>
#> 1         what          is            a       sepal anyway?
#> 2          4.9           3          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 3          4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
#> 4       sepals     support          the      petals      !!

Download this precious thing as csv (other formats are possible):

iris_ss %>% 
  gs_download(to = "iris-ish-stuff.csv", overwrite = TRUE)
#> Sheet successfully downloaded:
#> /Users/jenny/rrr/googlesheets/iris-ish-stuff.csv

Download this precious thing as an Excel workbook (other formats are possible):

iris_ss %>% 
  gs_download(to = "iris-ish-stuff.xlsx", overwrite = TRUE)
#> Sheet successfully downloaded:
#> /Users/jenny/rrr/googlesheets/iris-ish-stuff.xlsx

Upload a Excel workbook into a new Sheet:

gap_xlsx <- gs_upload(system.file("mini-gap", "mini-gap.xlsx",
                                  package = "googlesheets"))
#> File uploaded to Google Drive:
#> /Users/jenny/resources/R/library/googlesheets/mini-gap/mini-gap.xlsx
#> As the Google Sheet named:
#> mini-gap

Clean up our mess locally and on Google Drive:

gs_vecdel(c("iris", "Gapminder"))
file.remove(c("iris-ish-stuff.csv", "iris-ish-stuff.xlsx"))

Remember, the vignette shows a lot more usage.

Overview of functions

| fxn | description | |:-------------------------|:----------------------------------------------------------| | gs_ls() | List Sheets | | gs_title() | Register a Sheet by title | | gs_key() | Register a Sheet by key | | gs_url() | Register a Sheet by URL | | gs_gs() | Re-register a googlesheet | | gs_browse() | Visit a registered googlesheet in the browser | | gs_read() | Read data and let googlesheets figure out how | | gs_read_csv() | Read explicitly via the fast exportcsv link | | gs_read_listfeed() | Read explicitly via the list feed | | gs_read_cellfeed() | Read explicitly via the cell feed | | gs_reshape_cellfeed() | Reshape cell feed data into a 2D thing | | gs_simplify_cellfeed() | Simplify cell feed data into a 1D thing | | gs_edit_cells() | Edit specific cells | | gs_add_row() | Append a row to pre-existing data table | | gs_new() | Create a new Sheet and optionally populate | | gs_copy() | Copy a Sheet into a new Sheet | | gs_rename() | Rename an existing Sheet | | gs_ws_ls() | List the worksheets in a Sheet | | gs_ws_new() | Create a new worksheet and optionally populate | | gs_ws_rename() | Rename a worksheet | | gs_ws_delete() | Delete a worksheet | | gs_delete() | Delete a Sheet | | gs_grepdel() | Delete Sheets with matching titles | | gs_vecdel() | Delete the named Sheets | | gs_upload() | Upload local file into a new Sheet | | gs_download() | Download a Sheet into a local file | | gs_auth() | Authorize the package | | gs_deauth() | De-authorize the package | | gs_user() | Get info about current user and auth status | | gs_webapp_auth_url() | Facilitates auth by user of a Shiny app | | gs_webapp_get_token() | Facilitates auth by user of a Shiny app | | gs_gap() | Registers a public Gapminder-based Sheet (for practicing) | | gs_gap_key() | Key of the Gapminder practice Sheet | | gs_gap_url() | Browser URL for the Gapminder practice Sheet |

What the hell do I do with this?

Think of googlesheets as a read/write CMS that you (or your less R-obsessed friends) can edit through Google Docs, as well via R. It's like Christmas up in here.

Use a Google Form to conduct a survey, which populates a Google Sheet.

Gather data while you're in the field in a Google Sheet, maybe with an iPhone or an Android device. Take advantage of data validation to limit the crazy on the way in. You do not have to be online to edit a Google Sheet! Work offline via the Chrome browser, the Sheets app for Android, or the Sheets app for iOS.

There are various ways to harvest web data directly into a Google Sheet. For example:

Use googlesheets to get all that data into R.

Use it in a Shiny app! Several example apps come with the package.

What other ideas do you have?



dakota1063/dddd documentation built on May 25, 2019, 4:21 p.m.