boxr

A lightweight, high-level R interface for the box.com API, standing on the shoulders of httr.

Installation

You can download boxr from CRAN, with

install.packages("boxr")

If you'd like to download the development version from GitHub, use

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("brendan-r/boxr")

Usage

Basic Operations

Aside from file upload/download, boxr provides functions which mirror base R operations for local files.

box_dl(file_id) and box_ul(file = 'path/to/file') download and upload files, respectively
box_search() to query files & folders stored on box.com
box_read() read files straight into R (e.g. .csv or .xlsx files as data.frames)
box_write() write R objects to remotely hosted files
box_setwd()/box_getwd() get/set a default box folder
box_source() read and execute remote code
box_load()/box_save() for remote R workspaces
box_add_description() add text descriptions to your files on box.com

Directory wide Operations

Cloud storage services can complement version control systems for code, which aren't well suited to large binary files (e.g. databases, .RData, or heaps of pdfs). box explicitly versions binary files, keeping old ones, and making it easy fall back to an older copy.

boxr provides git style facilities to upload, download, and synchronize the contents of entire local and remote directories. At the time of writing, the box.com API does not support this directly, and so boxr recursively loops through directory structures.

box_push will update the remote directory with new/changed local files
box_fetch will update the local directory with new/changed remote files

These functions all have overwrite and delete parameters, which are set to FALSE by default.

Disclaimer: box.com is no replacement for a VCS/remote-database, and familiar verbs are no guarantee of expected behavior! Do check the function documentation before jumping in.

Piping

boxr's functions have been designed to be 'pipable'. Here's a little example:

library(boxr)
library(dplyr)
library(magrittr)

# 'nycflights13.json' is the same as nycflights13::flights, if you want to 
# follow along at home

box_auth()

box_search("nycflights13.json") %>%                # Find a remote file
  box_read() %>%                                   # Download it as a data.frame
    group_by(origin, dest, month) %>%              #   Do some, er, cutting edge 
    summarise(mu = mean(arr_delay), n = n()) %>%   #   analysis with dplyr!
  box_write("delay_summary.xlsx") %>%              # Convert to .xlsx, upload
  box_add_description("Check out these averages!") # Add a description to your file!

File/Folder IDs

Are how box.com identifies things. You can find them in an item's URL:

Getting set up

To use boxr, you need to enable API access for your box.com account. The process is slightly annoying. You only need to do it once - it takes around 2 minutes.

1. 'Create an app'

At https://www.box.com/developers/services, log in and create a new 'app' for your box.com account. You can call it anything you like. This won't do anything remotely like creating an app, but it does allow you to access your account via the API.

2. Set OAuth2 Parameters

On the next screen, you'll want to set Content API Access Only, and http://localhost as your redirect_uri as in the screenshot below.

3. Connect boxr to your account

This means passing your client_id and client_secret to the box_auth function. These strings are not enough for someone to access your account maliciously. However, it's still a good idea to keep them safe, and out of any files or code which might be shared with others.

Run:

library(boxr)
box_auth()

And paste/type the client_id and client_secret when prompted. If these are valid, a browser window should open, for you to formally grant yourself access to your files at box.com.

4. And you're done

If box_auth() worked successfully, you won't need to do any of this again, and thanks to the magic of httr everything should just work. Your client_id and client_secret will be securely stored in your R environment variables, your hashed OAuth2.0 token will stored at ~/.boxr-oauth, .gitignore'd if necessary, and automatically refreshed when needed.

Notes

Verbosity

boxr is by default rather verbose, printing status to the console with cat. This is 'rude' package behaviour, and may cause unwanted output if used in conjunction with the excellent knitr package.

To supress messages produced using cat, set boxr's verbose option with:

options(boxr.verbose = FALSE, boxr.progress = FALSE)

Alternatives

boxr aims to expedite data analysis/communication/distribution. Other ways to manipulate a box.com account include:

The box desktop app
The other boxr, written in Ruby. It's motivations are rather different, and it covers 100% of the box.com API (e.g account administration, etc.)
box themselves provide a wide range of SDKs, including one for Python

Managing your client id & secret

If you don't like the idea of typing credentials into your console, you can put them straight into ~/.Renviron yourself, prior to the R session:

BOX_CLIENT_ID="youridhere"
BOX_CLIENT_SECRET="yoursecrethere"

(Note the final blank line).

Contributing

Always very welcome! If you'd like to submit a pull request for a new feature, ideally it would be documented, come with an addtion to NEWS.md, and have a test or two. This project has a standard Code of Conduct.

Remote Usage (e.g. ssh / rstudio-server)

This proves tricky for the OAuth2.0 dance, as it relies on browser access. While not 'officially supported', it's possible to authenticate on a local machine to generate a cached token (by default, at ~/.boxr-oauth), and then copy the file over to the eqivalent location on the remote machine. boxr can then read the copied file during remote code execution.

Troubleshooting

Via GitHub issues, please. It's been a while since I've read the R mailing lists!

In General

If you run in to problems, first make sure that your credentials are correct, and that you're using the latest version of boxr. You can update boxr with:

install.packages("boxr")

Problems Authenticating

Sometimes an old token can cause problems during authentication. If you're sure that your client_id and client_secret are correct, but box_auth() isn't working, try the following in a fresh session:

install.packages("boxr") # Make sure you're using the latest version of boxr
library(boxr)            # Load it
box_fresh_auth()         # Delete the old token, and reauthenticate

This will delete the old token (by default stored at ~/.boxr-oauth), and start the auth process afresh. A browser window will open, and you'll be prompted to sign in to your box account to verify yourself.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

jgrew/boxr