Request to API using httr2 not changing like httr

Question

I'm trying to switch from the R package httr to httr2

httr2 is the modern rewrite and should be superior, but I'm a novice when it comes to APIs and coding and I've been stuck all day trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I can only get httr to work with this API.

I believe I am messing up with adding the headers, as I don't think the path sent to the API is changing. So my problem is the request gets rejected simply because the API can't read my API key.

Here is what I have done in httr2:

    gov_url <- "https://api.dummy.gov/aaa/bb/cc"

    resp <- request(gov_url) %>% 
       req_headers(
          param1  = "10", 
          api_key = "abcdefg",
          param2  = "xyz",
          param3  = "09/10/2022"
       ) %>%
     req_dry_run()

Output:

    GET /destiny/v1/placeholder HTTP/1.1
    Host: api.dummy.gov
    User-Agent: httr2/0.2.1 r-curl/4.3.2 libcurl/7.64.1
    Accept: */*
    Accept-Encoding: deflate, gzip
    param1: 10
    api_key: abcdefg
    param2: xyz
    param3: 09/10/2022

The first line of that output hasn't changed.

    GET /destiny/v1/placeholder HTTP/1.1

Showing the structure of the 'resp' object with str(resp)

    List of 7
     $ url     : chr "https://api.dummy.gov/destiny/v1/placeholder"
     $ method  : NULL
     $ headers :List of 4
      ..$ param1    : chr "10"
      ..$ api_key   : chr "abcdefg"
      ..$ param2    : chr "xyz"
      ..$ param3    : chr "09/10/2022"
     $ body    : NULL
     $ fields  : list()
     $ options : list()
     $ policies: list()
     - attr(*, "class")= chr "httr2_request"

Sending the request with resp %>% req_perform(verbosity = 2) gives me this error:

    HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
---
    "error": 
     "code": "API_KEY_MISSING",
       "message": "No api_key was supplied. Please submit with a valid API key."

---

But when I use httr though, I can pull data from the API.

    gov_url <- "https://api.dummy.gov/destiny/v1/placeholder"

    query_params <- list('param1'    = '10',
                         'api_key'   = "abcdefg",
                         'param2'    = 'xyz',
                         'param3'    = '09/10/2022')

    gov_api <- GET(path, query = query_params)

Showing structure str(gov_api) shows the path has changed which is quite good because it matches the example input provided from the API

    List of 10
     $ url        : chr "https://api.dummy.gov/destiny/v1/placeholder?param1=10&api_key=abcdefg&param2"| __trunc
     $ status_code: int 200
     $ headers    :List of 19
      ..$ xyz                     : chr "1"
      ..$ abc                     : chr "application/json"
      ..$ edg                     : chr "something" 

And http_status(gov_api) shows its making the connection

    $message
    "Success: (200) OK"

Then I'm able to successfully use httr to pull data from the API.

---

Thank you to anyone who has read this far. I'd appreciate any feedback if possible.

Other things I've tried to no avail:

1. !!! to evaluate the list of expressions
2. Sending the API a list named queue like I do in httr
3. Sending the param "accept" = "application/json"
4. Different syntax, quotations

Answer 1

I'm not sure what you're after, but if you want to reproduce same comportement as httr with httr2 you can do :

library(httr2)
gov_url <- "https://api.dummy.gov/aaa/bb/cc"

param <- list(param1  = "10",
              api_key = "abcdefg",
              param2  = "xyz",
              param3  = "09/10/2022")

resp <- request(gov_url) %>% 
   req_url_query(!!!param)

resp$url
#> [1] "https://api.dummy.gov/aaa/bb/cc?param1=10&api_key=abcdefg&param2=xyz&param3=09%2F10%2F2022"

Perhaps the confusion come from the fact that in httr2 you're setting headers and in httr you're setting query.