CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rbase64github-api
Sahib
Sahib

Reputation: 160

How to base 64 encode a dataframe in r

As an example lets take df <- head(iris). How would I encode this into a base64 string. I need it for the GitHub API content argument.

At the moment I have been trying to use the base64encode() function but get the "error in normalizePath".

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1743

Answers (2)

Sahib
Sahib

Reputation: 160

Specifically for the GitHub API after some research the following code worked perfectly as it was able to decode and move the table to Github:

df1<-charToRaw(paste(capture.output(write.table(Table, quote=FALSE, row.names=FALSE , sep=",")), collapse="\n")) 

base64_code<-base64enc::base64encode(df1)

This was able to be placed in the content argument of the rest API to update the file.

Upvotes: 1

Allan Cameron
Allan Cameron

Reputation: 174278

You can use serialize to get the raw bytes of the object and convert them to base 64:

df <- head(iris)
b64_string <- base64enc::base64encode(serialize(df, NULL))

b64_string
#> [1] "WAoAAAADAAMGAgADBQAAAAAGQ1AxMjUyAAADEwAAAAUAAAAOAAAABkAUZmZmZmZ
#>      mQBOZmZmZmZpAEszMzMzMzUASZmZmZmZmQBQAAAAAAABAFZmZmZmZmgAAAA4AAAA
#>      GQAwAAAAAAABACAAAAAAAAEAJmZmZmZmaQAjMzMzMzM1ADMzMzMzMzUAPMzMzMzM
#>      zAAAADgAAAAY/9mZmZmZmZj/2ZmZmZmZmP/TMzMzMzM0/+AAAAAAAAD/2ZmZmZmZ
#>      mP/szMzMzMzMAAAAOAAAABj/JmZmZmZmaP8mZmZmZmZo/yZmZmZmZmj/JmZmZmZm
#>      aP8mZmZmZmZo/2ZmZmZmZmgAAAw0AAAAGAAAAAQAAAAEAAAABAAAAAQAAAAEAAAA
#>      BAAAEAgAAAAEABAAJAAAABmxldmVscwAAABAAAAADAAQACQAAAAZzZXRvc2EABAA
#>      JAAAACnZlcnNpY29sb3IABAAJAAAACXZpcmdpbmljYQAABAIAAAABAAQACQAAAAV
#>      jbGFzcwAAABAAAAABAAQACQAAAAZmYWN0b3IAAAD+AAAEAgAAAAEABAAJAAAABW5
#>      hbWVzAAAAEAAAAAUABAAJAAAADFNlcGFsLkxlbmd0aAAEAAkAAAALU2VwYWwuV2l
#>      kdGgABAAJAAAADFBldGFsLkxlbmd0aAAEAAkAAAALUGV0YWwuV2lkdGgABAAJAAA
#>      AB1NwZWNpZXMAAAQCAAAAAQAEAAkAAAAJcm93Lm5hbWVzAAAADQAAAAKAAAAAAAA
#>      ABgAABAIAAAL/AAAAEAAAAAEABAAJAAAACmRhdGEuZnJhbWUAAAD+"

You can undo this operation after transmission with:

unserialize(base64enc::base64decode(b64_string))
#>   Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#> 1          5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 2          4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 3          4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
#> 4          4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2  setosa
#> 5          5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 6          5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4  setosa

However, if this is for github, it may be best to transmit the code that reproduces the data frame rather than binary information. This can be achieved with dput, e.g.

ascii_string <- paste(capture.output(dput(df)), collapse = "\n")

ascii_string
#> [1] "structure(list(Sepal.Length = c(5.1, 4.9, 4.7, 4.6, 5, 5.4), \n    
#> Sepal.Width = c(3.5, 3, 3.2, 3.1, 3.6, 3.9), Petal.Length = c(1.4, \n    
#> 1.4, 1.3, 1.5, 1.4, 1.7), Petal.Width = c(0.2, 0.2, 0.2, \n    0.2, 0.2, 
#> 0.4), Species = structure(c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, \n    1L), .Label = 
#> c(\"setosa\", \"versicolor\", \"virginica\"), class = \"factor\")), 
#> row.names = c(NA, \n6L), class = \"data.frame\")"

This could be written to a .R file as a way of reproducing the data frame. It can also be used to reconstitute the data frame programatically with eval(parse(text = ascii_string))

Upvotes: 6

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