Authenticated HTTP Request Client for the 'Hakai' API

Initializes a class that obtains API credentials and provides a method to use those credentials to make GET requests to the 'Hakai' API server. Usage instructions are documented at < https://hakaiinstitute.github.io/hakai-api/>.

Hakai API R Client

This project exports a single R6 class for the R programming language that can be used to make HTTP requests to the Hakai API resource server. The Class provides a "get" method to make Authenticated requests to the Hakai API data server without needing to know the details of the authentication process.

Installation

Before using this library, install it into your environment using one of the following in your R script:

# From CRAN
install.packages("hakaiApi")

# OR, the latest version from GitHub
install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("HakaiInstitute/hakai-api-client-r", subdir='hakaiApi')

Quickstart

# Initialize the client
client <- hakaiApi::Client$new("https://hecate.hakai.org")

# Request some data (request chlorophyll data here)
data <- client$get("api/eims/views/output/chlorophyll?limit=50")

# View out the data
View(data)

Methods

This library exports a single class named Client. Instantiating this class with the $new method sets up the credentials for requests using the $get method.

The hakai_api Client class also contains a property api_root which is useful for constructing urls to access data from the API. The above Quickstart example demonstrates using this property to construct a url to access chlorophyll data.

If for some reason your credentials become corrupted and stop working, there is a method to remove the old cached credentials for your account so you can re-authenticate. just do client$remove_old_credentials().

API endpoints

For details about the API, including available endpoints where data can be requested, see the Hakai API documentation.

Advanced usage

You can specify which API to access when instantiating the Client. By default, the API uses https://hecate.hakai.org/api as the API root. It may be useful to use this library to access a locally running API instance or to access the Goose API for testing purposes.

# Get a client for a locally running API instance
client <- hakaiApi::Client$new("localhost:8666")
print(client$api_root) # http://localhost:8666

Contributing

This class defines a number of public and private variables and methods that make this request client work. The development of this class was largely informed by the R project's R6 class documentation. To build this class into a R package, this tutorial was followed.