For this assignment we created individual xml, JSON, and html files to store information related to books we have read and enjoyed. After uploading these files to the internet, we developed R scripts to retrieve the files and then the information into separate dataframes.
This exercise facilitates our understanding of xml, JSON, and html file structures as well as our ablity to manipulate this information.
library(xml2)
library(flatxml)
library(methods)
library(htmltab)
library(kableExtra)
library(tidyverse)
library(magrittr)
library(jsonlite)Read html table and save into dataframe. In this case, I used the htmltab function.
#Read in html table from github and save as dataframe
url <- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sconnin/DATA607_HW7/main/HW7_html_table.html?token=APC5QM2CW2P3H5W6W6QXZSTAK6PXI"
df_books<-htmltab(doc=url)
#Print table without assigned row numbers
row.names(df_books) <- NULL
df_books%>%kbl%>%kable_material(c("striped"))| ID | Title | Author | ISBN | Publisher | Pages | Copyright Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston | 9780060916503 | HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS | 207 | 1990 |
| 2 | Sand County Almanac With Essays on Conservation from Round River | Aldo Leopold | 9780345345059 | PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE | 320 | 1966 |
| 3 | Desert Solitaire | Edward Abbey | 9780671695880 | POCKET BOOKS | 288 | 1990 |
Read xml file from Github and convert to dataframe. I used the flatxml library for this purpose.
# Convert the input xml file to a data frame.
df_xml <- fxml_importXMLFlat("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sconnin/DATA607_HW7/main/books.xml")
df_xml%>%kbl%>%kable_material(c("striped"))| elem. | elemid. | attr. | value. | level1 | level2 | level3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Books | 1 | NA | NA | Books | NA | NA |
| Book | 2 | NA | NA | Books | Book | NA |
| ID | 3 | NA | 1 | Books | Book | ID |
| Title | 4 | NA | Their Eyes Were Watching God | Books | Book | Title |
| Author | 5 | NA | Zora Neale Hurston | Books | Book | Author |
| ISBN | 6 | NA | 9780060916503 | Books | Book | ISBN |
| Publisher | 7 | NA | HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS | Books | Book | Publisher |
| Pages | 8 | NA | 207 | Books | Book | Pages |
| Copyright | 9 | NA | 1990 | Books | Book | Copyright |
| Book | 10 | NA | NA | Books | Book | NA |
| ID | 11 | NA | 2 | Books | Book | ID |
| Title | 12 | NA | Sand County Almanac With Essays on Conservation from Round River | Books | Book | Title |
| Author | 13 | NA | Aldo Leopold | Books | Book | Author |
| ISBN | 14 | NA | 9780345345059 | Books | Book | ISBN |
| Publisher | 15 | NA | PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE | Books | Book | Publisher |
| Pages | 16 | NA | 320 | Books | Book | Pages |
| Copyright | 17 | NA | 1966 | Books | Book | Copyright |
| Book | 18 | NA | NA | Books | Book | NA |
| ID | 19 | NA | 3 | Books | Book | ID |
| Title | 20 | NA | Desert Solitaire | Books | Book | Title |
| Author | 21 | NA | Edward Abbey | Books | Book | Author |
| ISBN | 22 | NA | 9780671695880 | Books | Book | ISBN |
| Publisher | 23 | NA | POCKET BOOKS | Books | Book | Publisher |
| Pages | 24 | NA | 288 | Books | Book | Pages |
| Copyright | 25 | NA | 1990 | Books | Book | Copyright |
Read Json file from Github and convert to dataframe. I used the JSONlite library for this purpose.
url <- "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sconnin/DATA607_HW7/main/HW7_JSON.json"
books <- jsonlite::fromJSON(url, simplifyVector = TRUE)
df_bks <- data.frame(books)
row.names(df_bks)## [1] "1" "2" "3"df_bks%>%kbl%>%kable_material(c("striped"))| ID | Title | Author | ISBN | Pages | Copyright.Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston | 9780060916503 | 207 | 1990 |
| 2 | Sand County Almanac With Essays on Conservation from Round River | Aldo Leopold | 9780345345059 | 320 | 1996 |
| 3 | Desert Solitaire | Edward Abbey | 9780671695880 | 288 | 1990 |
The dataframes produced from html and JSON file formats are essentially identical. The dataframe produced from the xml file format has been flattened but still retains the hierarchical relationships (e.g., root, path) inherent to xml. Additional manipulation is required to remove these features.