read.csv fails to read a CSV file from google docs

Question

I wish to use read.csv to read a google doc spreadsheet.

I try using the following code:

data_url <- "http://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgMhDTVek_sDdGI2YzY2R1ZESDlmZS1VYUxvblQ0REE&single=true&gid=0&output=csv"
read.csv(data_url)

Which results in the following error:

Error in file(file, "rt") : cannot open the connection

I'm on windows 7. And the code was tried on R 2.12 and 2.13

I remember trying this a few months ago and it worked fine. Any suggestion what might be causing this or how to solve it?

Thanks.

Answer 1

It might have something to do with the fact that Google is reporting a 302 temporarily moved response.

> download.file(data_url, "~/foo.csv", method = "wget")
--2011-04-29 18:01:01--  http://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgMhDTVek_sDdGI2YzY2R1ZESDlmZS1VYUxvblQ0REE&single=true&gid=0&output=csv
Resolving spreadsheets0.google.com... 74.125.230.132, 74.125.230.128, 74.125.230.130, ...
Connecting to spreadsheets0.google.com|74.125.230.132|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: https://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgMhDTVek_sDdGI2YzY2R1ZESDlmZS1VYUxvblQ0REE&single=true&gid=0&output=csv [following]
--2011-04-29 18:01:01--  https://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgMhDTVek_sDdGI2YzY2R1ZESDlmZS1VYUxvblQ0REE&single=true&gid=0&output=csv
Connecting to spreadsheets0.google.com|74.125.230.132|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/plain]
Saving to: `/home/gavin/foo.csv'

    [ <=>                                                                                                                                                   ] 41          --.-K/s   in 0s      

2011-04-29 18:01:02 (1.29 MB/s) - `/home/gavin/foo.csv' saved [41]

> read.csv("~/foo.csv")
  column1 column2
1       a       1
2       b       2
3      ds       3
4       d       4
5       f       5
6      ga       5

I'm not sure R's internal download code is capable of responding to such redirects:

> download.file(data_url, "~/foo.csv")
trying URL 'http://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgMhDTVek_sDdGI2YzY2R1ZESDlmZS1VYUxvblQ0REE&single=true&gid=0&output=csv'
Error in download.file(data_url, "~/foo.csv") : 
  cannot open URL 'http://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AgMhDTVek_sDdGI2YzY2R1ZESDlmZS1VYUxvblQ0REE&single=true&gid=0&output=csv'

Answer 2

I ran into the same problem and eventually found a solution in a forum thread. Using my own public CSV file:

library(RCurl)
tt = getForm("https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub", 
          hl ="en_US", key = "0Aonsf4v9iDjGdHRaWWRFbXdQN1ZvbGx0LWVCeVd0T1E", 
          output = "csv", 
         .opts = list(followlocation = TRUE, verbose = TRUE, ssl.verifypeer = FALSE)) 

holidays <- read.csv(textConnection(tt))