The task is to choose one of the New York Times APIs, construct an interface in R, read in some JSON data, and transform it into an R data frame.
I chose the Movie Reviews API, for which the documentation can be found here (requires API key): http://developer.nytimes.com/movie_reviews_v2.json#/README
I installed the ‘jsonlite’ package to facilitate reading the JSON and transforming it to a data frame.
install.packages("jsonlite",repos='http://cran.wustl.edu/')
library(jsonlite)The code below creates the R interface, reads in JSON data, and transforms it to a data frame. (Code borrows heavily from this CRAN R page: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/jsonlite/vignettes/json-apis.html)
# Use API key to create key string to be added to URL
nyt_api_key <- "&api-key=a4c5027d4f8e46e9bb938a232b600914"
# Assign API URL to variable; searches the movie reviews table using the key
# word "walk" for movies which opened between 1/1/1930 and 1/1/2015
nyt_api_url <- "http://api.nytimes.com/svc/movies/v2/reviews/search.json?query=walk&opening-date=1930-01-01;2015-01-01"
# Get JSON data from API and convert to data frame
movies <- data.frame(fromJSON(paste0(nyt_api_url, nyt_api_key)), simplifyDataFrame= TRUE)
class(movies)## [1] "data.frame"# View data frame
head(movies)## status
## 1 OK
## 2 OK
## 3 OK
## 4 OK
## 5 OK
## 6 OK
## copyright
## 1 Copyright (c) 2016 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
## 2 Copyright (c) 2016 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
## 3 Copyright (c) 2016 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
## 4 Copyright (c) 2016 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
## 5 Copyright (c) 2016 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
## 6 Copyright (c) 2016 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
## has_more num_results results.display_title
## 1 TRUE 20 A Walk Among the Tombstones
## 2 TRUE 20 The Maid's Room
## 3 TRUE 20 Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago
## 4 TRUE 20 Brick Mansions
## 5 TRUE 20 Walking with the Enemy
## 6 TRUE 20 Walking With Dinosaurs 3D
## results.mpaa_rating results.critics_pick results.byline
## 1 R 0 MANOHLA DARGIS
## 2 0 BEN KENIGSBERG
## 3 0 DANIEL M. GOLD
## 4 PG-13 0 A. O. SCOTT
## 5 PG-13 0 BEN KENIGSBERG
## 6 PG 0 NEIL GENZLINGER
## results.headline
## 1 Good vs. Evil, Both Bloody
## 2 The Invisible but All-Seeing Servant
## 3 A Journey for the Soles and the Soul
## 4 A Rocket Is Aimed at Detroit (Run! Jump!)
## 5 In a Scary Uniform, Subverting a March to Death
## 6 Like Simba, Only He<U+0092>s a Plucky Pachyrhinosaurus
## results.summary_short
## 1 In “A Walk Among the Tombstones” the private investigator Matthew Scudder, from the Lawrence Block novels, pursues a case that leads him to an underworld of brutality.
## 2 In <U+0093>The Maid<U+0092>s Room,<U+0094> a live-in maid in the Hamptons gains some leverage over her employers.
## 3 <U+0093>Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago<U+0094> documents travelers who make the trek to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
## 4 <U+0093>Brick Mansions,<U+0094> directed by Camille Delamarre, comes tantalizingly close to being a high-impact allegory of race, class and real estate in a postindustrial, new-Gilded Age America.
## 5 <U+0093>Walking With the Enemy<U+0094> is based on the real-life story of a Hungarian Jew who saved lives during World War II by posing as a Nazi officer.
## 6 In the family-friendly film <U+0093>Walking With Dinosaurs,<U+0094> computer-generated creatures face conflicts echoing the <U+0093>Lion King<U+0094> story.
## results.publication_date results.opening_date results.date_updated
## 1 2014-09-18 2014-09-19 2016-03-30 07:03:47
## 2 2014-08-07 2014-08-08 2016-03-30 07:01:11
## 3 2014-06-05 2013-02-27 2016-03-30 07:08:29
## 4 2014-04-24 2014-04-25 2016-03-30 07:02:02
## 5 2014-04-24 2014-04-15 2016-03-30 07:03:20
## 6 2013-12-19 2013-12-20 2016-03-30 07:00:21
## results.link.type
## 1 article
## 2 article
## 3 article
## 4 article
## 5 article
## 6 article
## results.link.url
## 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/movies/a-walk-among-the-tombstones-adapts-lawrence-blocks-novel.html
## 2 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/movies/the-maids-room-directed-by-michael-walker.html
## 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/movies/walking-the-camino-a-documentary-by-lydia-b-smith.html
## 4 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/movies/paul-walker-stars-in-the-action-remake-brick-mansions.html
## 5 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/movies/a-jew-poses-as-a-nazi-in-walking-with-the-enemy.html
## 6 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/movies/walking-with-dinosaurs-about-a-herd-on-the-move.html
## results.link.suggested_link_text
## 1 Read the New York Times Review of A Walk Among the Tombstones
## 2 Read the New York Times Review of The Maid's Room
## 3 Read the New York Times Review of Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago
## 4 Read the New York Times Review of Brick Mansions
## 5 Read the New York Times Review of Walking with the Enemy
## 6 Read the New York Times Review of Walking With Dinosaurs 3D
## results.multimedia.type
## 1 mediumThreeByTwo210
## 2 mediumThreeByTwo210
## 3 mediumThreeByTwo210
## 4 mediumThreeByTwo210
## 5 mediumThreeByTwo210
## 6 mediumThreeByTwo210
## results.multimedia.src
## 1 https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/09/19/arts/WALKAMONGTOMBSTONES/WALKAMONGTOMBSTONES-mediumThreeByTwo210-v3.jpg
## 2 https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/08/08/arts/08MAIDS/08MAIDS-mediumThreeByTwo210.jpg
## 3 https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/06/06/arts/06WALKING/WALKING-mediumThreeByTwo210.jpg
## 4 https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/04/25/arts/25BRICK/25BRICK-mediumThreeByTwo210-v2.jpg
## 5 https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/04/25/arts/25RDP_WALKING_SPAN/25RDP_WALKING_SPAN-mediumThreeByTwo210-v2.jpg
## 6 https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/12/20/arts/20DINOSAURS/DINOSAURS-mediumThreeByTwo210.jpg
## results.multimedia.width results.multimedia.height simplifyDataFrame
## 1 210 140 TRUE
## 2 210 140 TRUE
## 3 210 140 TRUE
## 4 210 140 TRUE
## 5 210 140 TRUE
## 6 210 140 TRUE