R/validate.R
validate.Rd
This set of functions inspect a data frame to anticipate problems before writing with REDCap's API.
validate_for_write( d )
validate_no_logical( data_types, stop_on_error )
validate_field_names( field_names, stop_on_error = FALSE )
The data types of the data frame corresponding to the REDCap project.
If TRUE
, an error is thrown for violations.
Otherwise, a dataset summarizing the problems is returned.
The base::data.frame()
or tibble::tibble()
containing the dataset used to update
the REDCap project.
The names of the fields/variables in the REDCap project. Each field is an individual element in the character vector.
A tibble::tibble()
, where each potential violation is a row.
The two columns are:
field_name
: The name of the field/column/variable that might cause
problems during the upload.
field_index
: The position of the field. (For example, a value of
'1' indicates the first column, while a '3' indicates the third column.)
concern
: A description of the problem potentially caused by the field
.
suggestion
: A potential solution to the concern.
All functions listed in the Usage section above inspect a specific aspect
of the dataset. The validate_for_write()
function executes all these
individual validation checks. It allows the client to check everything
with one call.
Currently it verifies that the dataset
does not contain
logical
values (because REDCap typically wants 0
/1
values instead of
FALSE
/TRUE
).
starts with a lowercase letter, and subsequent optional characters are a
sequence of (a) lowercase letters, (b) digits 0-9, and/or (c) underscores.
(The exact regex is ^[a-z][0-9a-z_]*$
.)
If you encounter additional types of problems when attempting to write to REDCap, please tell us by creating a new issue, and we'll incorporate a new validation check into this function.
The official documentation can be found on the 'API Help Page' and 'API Examples' pages on the REDCap wiki (i.e., https://community.projectredcap.org/articles/456/api-documentation.html and https://community.projectredcap.org/articles/462/api-examples.html). If you do not have an account for the wiki, please ask your campus REDCap administrator to send you the static material.
d <- data.frame(
record_id = 1:4,
flag_logical = c(TRUE, TRUE, FALSE, TRUE),
flag_Uppercase = c(4, 6, 8, 2)
)
REDCapR::validate_for_write(d = d)
#> # A tibble: 2 × 4
#> field_name field_index concern sugge…¹
#> <chr> <int> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 flag_logical 2 The REDCap API does not automatically conv… Conver…
#> 2 flag_Uppercase 3 A REDCap project does not allow field name… Change…
#> # … with abbreviated variable name ¹suggestion