Import metadata of a REDCap project

Import metadata (i.e., data dictionary) into a project. Because of this method's destructive nature, it works for only projects in Development status.

redcap_metadata_write(
  ds,
  redcap_uri,
  token,
  verbose = TRUE,
  config_options = NULL,
  handle_httr = NULL
)

Arguments

ds

The base::data.frame() or tibble::tibble() to be imported into the REDCap project. Required.

redcap_uri

The uri/url of the REDCap server typically formatted as "https://server.org/apps/redcap/api/". Required.

token

The user-specific string that serves as the password for a project. Required.

verbose

A boolean value indicating if messages should be printed to the R console during the operation. The verbose output might contain sensitive information (e.g. PHI), so turn this off if the output might be visible somewhere public. Optional.

config_options

A list of options passed to httr::POST(). See details at httr::httr_options(). Optional.

handle_httr

The value passed to the handle parameter of httr::POST(). This is useful for only unconventional authentication approaches. It should be NULL for most institutions. Optional.

Value

Currently, a list is returned with the following elements:

• success: A boolean value indicating if the operation was apparently successful.

• status_code: The http status code of the operation.

• outcome_message: A human readable string indicating the operation's outcome.

• field_count: Number of fields imported.

• elapsed_seconds: The duration of the function.

• raw_text: If an operation is NOT successful, the text returned by REDCap. If an operation is successful, the raw_text is returned as an empty string to save RAM.

References

The official documentation can be found on the 'API Help Page' and 'API Examples' pages on the REDCap wiki. If you do not have an account for the wiki, please ask your campus REDCap administrator to send you the static material.

Author

Will Beasley

Examples

# \dontrun{
# Please don't run this example without changing the token to
# point to your server.  It could interfere with our testing suite.
uri            <- "https://bbmc.ouhsc.edu/redcap/api/"
token          <- "457C24AB91B7FCF5B1A7DA67E70E24C7"

# Read in the dictionary in R's memory from a csv file.
ds_to_write <-
  readr::read_csv(
    file = system.file(
      "test-data/project-simple/metadata.csv",
      package = "REDCapR"
    ),
    col_types = readr::cols(.default = readr::col_character())
  )
ds_to_write
#> # A tibble: 16 × 18
#>    field_name form_name  secti…¹ field…² field…³ selec…⁴ field…⁵ text_…⁶ text_…⁷
#>    <chr>      <chr>      <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>  
#>  1 record_id  demograph… NA      text    Study … NA      NA      NA      NA     
#>  2 name_first demograph… Contac… text    First … NA      NA      NA      NA     
#>  3 name_last  demograph… NA      text    Last N… NA      NA      NA      NA     
#>  4 address    demograph… NA      notes   Street… NA      NA      NA      NA     
#>  5 telephone  demograph… NA      text    Phone … NA      Includ… phone   NA     
#>  6 email      demograph… NA      text    E-mail  NA      NA      email   NA     
#>  7 dob        demograph… NA      text    Date o… NA      NA      date_y… NA     
#>  8 age        demograph… NA      calc    Age (y… roundd… NA      NA      NA     
#>  9 sex        demograph… NA      radio   Gender  0, Fem… NA      NA      NA     
#> 10 height     health     NA      text    Height… NA      NA      number  130    
#> 11 weight     health     NA      text    Weight… NA      NA      integer 35     
#> 12 bmi        health     NA      calc    BMI     round(… NA      NA      NA     
#> 13 comments   health     Genera… notes   Commen… NA      NA      NA      NA     
#> 14 mugshot    health     NA      file    Mugshot NA      NA      NA      NA     
#> 15 race       race_and_… NA      checkb… Race (… 1, Ame… NA      NA      NA     
#> 16 ethnicity  race_and_… NA      radio   Ethnic… 0, Unk… NA      NA      NA     
#> # … with 9 more variables: text_validation_max <chr>, identifier <chr>,
#> #   branching_logic <chr>, required_field <chr>, custom_alignment <chr>,
#> #   question_number <chr>, matrix_group_name <chr>, matrix_ranking <chr>,
#> #   field_annotation <chr>, and abbreviated variable names ¹​section_header,
#> #   ²​field_type, ³​field_label, ⁴​select_choices_or_calculations, ⁵​field_note,
#> #   ⁶​text_validation_type_or_show_slider_number, ⁷​text_validation_min

# Import the dictionary into the REDCap project
REDCapR::redcap_metadata_write(
  ds          = ds_to_write,
  redcap_uri  = uri,
  token       = token
)
#> 16 fields were written to the REDCap dictionary in 0.7 seconds.
#> $success
#> [1] TRUE
#> 
#> $status_code
#> [1] 200
#> 
#> $outcome_message
#> [1] "16 fields were written to the REDCap dictionary in 0.7 seconds."
#> 
#> $field_count
#> [1] 16
#> 
#> $elapsed_seconds
#> [1] 0.6636698
#> 
#> $raw_text
#> [1] ""
#> 
# }