[R] RCurl: using netrc with curlPerform

Wed Aug 27 04:22:50 CEST 2008

Hi Valerie --

curlPerform is expecting the url to be an option that is named, i.e.,

> myopts <-curlOptions(netrc=1)
> url <- "http://www.omegahat.org/RCurl/testPassword/index.html"
> cat(curlPerform(url=url, .opts=myopts))

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
<html> <head>
<title>Basic Password Test</title>
</head>

<body>
<h1>Basic Password Test</h1>
This is a test page.
If you can read it, you have correctly supplied
the password.

<hr>
<address><a href="http://stat.ucdavis.edu/~duncan">Duncan Temple Lang</a>
<a href=mailto:duncan at wald.ucdavis.edu>&lt;duncan at wald.ucdavis.edu&gt;</a></address>
<!-- hhmts start -->
Last modified: Sun Aug  1 13:57:44 PDT 2004
<!-- hhmts end -->
</body> </html>

(also curlPerform(url=url, netrc=1))

Martin

Valerie Obenchain <vobencha at fhcrc.org> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I am having trouble getting the curlPerform function to authenticate
> using the .netrc file. From the documentation I've read it
> certainly seems as though this function should be able to authenticate
> via the .netrc file. 
>
> The example I am using here comes from the "R as a Web Client- the
> RCurl package" paper and demonstrates using the .netrc file to access
> the www.omegahat.org page. Authentication takes place by RCurl (curl)
> reading the username and password out of the .netrc file in the user's
> home directory. For this example the username is bob and password is
> welcome. The .netrc file in the user's home directory contains the
> following information:
> machine www.omegahat.org
> login bob
> password welcome
>
>
> I can successfully use the .netrc file with the getURL function:
>  > getURL("http://www.omegahat.org/RCurl/testPassword/index.html", netrc=1)
>
> [1] "<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN\">\n<html> <head>\n<title>Basic Password Test</title>\n</head>\n\n<body>\n<h1>Basic Password Test</h1>\nThis is a test page.\nIf you can read it, you have correctly supplied\nthe password.\n\n\n<hr>\n<address><a href=\"http://stat.ucdavis.edu/~duncan\">Duncan Temple Lang</a>\n<a href=mailto:duncan at wald.ucdavis.edu>&lt;duncan at wald.ucdavis.edu&gt;</a></address>\n<!-- 
> hhmts start -->\nLast modified: Sun Aug  1 13:57:44 PDT 2004\n<!--
> hhmts end -->\n</body> </html>\n"
>
>
> When I try to do the same with the curlPerform function I get an error
> saying that the curl option is not recognized. I have tried 3
> different
> ways of instructing the curlPerform function to use the .netrc file
> (in the .opts, curl handle and the ... argument) but got the same
> error message each time.
>
> # Failed attempt using .opts construct
> myopts <-curlOptions(netrc=1)
> curlPerform("http://www.omegahat.org/RCurl/testPassword/index.html",
> .opts=myopts)
>
> # Failed attempt using curl handle
> handle <- getCurlHandle(netrc=1)
> curlPerform("http://www.omegahat.org/RCurl/testPassword/index.html",
> curl=handle)
>
> # Failed attempt using ... construct
> curlPerform("http://www.omegahat.org/RCurl/testPassword/index.html",
> netrc=1)
>
> Common error message for all failed attempts:
> Error in mapCurlOptNames(names(.els), asNames = TRUE) :
>   Unrecognized CURL options:
>
>
> Valid curl option names are listed by typing listCurlOptions() and
> netrc is one of the options. The mapCurlOptNames code is not available
> for the user to view so I'm not able to deduce anything more from the
> error message.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Valerie
>
> ______________________________________________
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

-- 
Martin Morgan
Computational Biology / Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
1100 Fairview Ave. N.
PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109

Location: Arnold Building M2 B169
Phone: (206) 667-2793