sc_table: Allow json request to be passed as string

[matmo]

Currently sc_table only allows json files to be used. This is a limitation for certain use cases (when you, e.g. want to dynamically update the query or want to bundle the json query with R code).

This commit is a quick fix that allows the user to provide a json query from an R object.

The implementation preserves the current behaviour: If provided, the json_file is read in an takes precedence over the new json parameter. If no json_file is provided the user-supplied json query is sent to the server instead.

[GregorDeCillia]

Thank you! I am a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to "naming things" so I'll have to think about how exactly this should be included in sc_table(). My current idea would be to "overload" the first argument and rename it from json_file to json.

#' @param json path to a json file, which was downloaded via the STATcube GUI ("Open Data API Query").
#'   Alternatively, a json string with a class attribute of `"json"`.
sc_table(json, language = NULL, add_totals = TRUE, key = NULL) {
  if (!inherits(json, "json"))
     json <- readLines(json, warn = FALSE)
  # ...
}

The recommended way for custom requests is to use sc_table_custom() which will soon be extended to allow recodes (see #33). But I totally understand that sometimes it is easier to modify a downloaded json request from the STATcube GUI and pass it as a string.

[matmo]

That sounds like a much more elegant solution indeed but might require some rewriting for the table class, since it involves uses the file= option.

Another alternative would be to just skip readLines() altogether and leave this job to fromJSON, since it parses both files and strings. We then just have to hand over the correct option (file or json) to the class init function (or move the validate step into the class itself so we can get rid of the ugly ifelse()s):

sc_table <- function(json, language = NULL, add_totals = TRUE,
                     key = NULL) {
  ...
  is_json <- jsonlite::validate(json)
  res <- sc_table_json_post(json, language, add_totals, key) %>%
    sc_table_class$new(json = ifelse(is_json), file = ifelse(is_json, ...), add_totals = add_totals)

[GregorDeCillia]

I was actually trying to find a regex yesterday that aimed to perform what jsonlite::validate() does. Good to know I don't have to re-invent the whell there. Normalizing the json argument should be done in sc_table - otherwise sc_table_json_post() will cause issues. You should be able to use json strings now with 6b63a60

remotes::install_github("statistikat/STATcubeR@6b63a60")
STATcubeR::sc_table('{"database": "str:database:detouextregsai"}')

[matmo]

Awesome, nice work!

[GregorDeCillia]

You are very welcome.

To clarify: 6b63a60 is part of #32 but my plan is to merge this in the upcoming weeks and create a new tag for v0.6.0. The deprication warning (parameter json_file was renamed to json) will be removed in v1.0.

[matmo]

Any news on the v0.6 release @GregorDeCillia? Thanks!

[bernhard-da]

@matmo unfortunately, plans for further development of the package are currently "on-hold" due to time-constraints as @GregorDeCillia has left STAT.