How do you pass parameters to a shiny app via URL?

Question

In web browsers you pass parameters to a website like

www.example.com/?parameter=1

I have a shiny app and I would like to use the parameter passed in to the site in calculations as an input. So is it possible to do something like www.example.com/?parameter=1 and then use input!parameter?

See also bookmarking state on the shiny website (seen in this SO Answer). It enables you to use urls of the form: gallery.shinyapps.io/113-bookmarking-url/?_inputs_&n=149. — Paul Rougieux
– Paul Rougieux, Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 13:49
For future readers: Here you can find a related post showing different approaches on uri routing for shinydashboard. — ismirsehregal
– ismirsehregal, Commented Jan 25, 2022 at 15:07

DeanAttali · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-30 19:29:48Z

63

You'd have to update the input yourself when the app initializes based on the URL. You would use the session$clientData$url_search variable to get the query parameters. Here's an example, you can easily expand this into your needs

library(shiny)

shinyApp(
  ui = fluidPage(
    textInput("text", "Text", "")
  ),
  server = function(input, output, session) {
    observe({
      query <- parseQueryString(session$clientData$url_search)
      if (!is.null(query[['text']])) {
        updateTextInput(session, "text", value = query[['text']])
      }
    })
  }
)

answered Sep 30, 2015 at 19:29

DeanAttali

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3 Comments

hsilva Over a year ago

Is it possible to update the input directly on the app? I'm trying to but it automatically changes to the url value. Eg in url I choose text='abc' and then on the app I want to define text='def'.

randy Over a year ago

And how would you do this without having to put an input in the UI? People may not want the user messing with the values that were passed.

DeanAttali Over a year ago

The input is just a demonstration of what you can do with the parameter. It's absolutely not required

Nimantha · Accepted Answer · 2025-09-19 15:29:30Z

18

Building off of DeanAttali, this takes any number of inputs and does the assigning of values for you for a few different types of inputs:

ui.R:

library(shiny)

shinyUI(fluidPage(
textInput("symbol", "Symbol Entry", ""),

dateInput("date_start", h4("Start Date"), value = "2005-01-01" ,startview = "year"),

selectInput("period_select", label = h4("Frequency of Updates"),
            c("Monthly" = 1,
              "Quarterly" = 2,
              "Weekly" = 3,
              "Daily" = 4)),

sliderInput("smaLen", label = "SMA Len",min = 1, max = 200, value = 115),br(),

checkboxInput("usema", "Use MA", FALSE)

))

server.R:

shinyServer(function(input, output,session) {
observe({
 query <- parseQueryString(session$clientData$url_search)

 for (i in 1:(length(reactiveValuesToList(input)))) {
  nameval = names(reactiveValuesToList(input)[i])
  valuetoupdate = query[[nameval]]
  
  if (!is.null(query[[nameval]])) {
    if (is.na(as.numeric(valuetoupdate))) {
      updateTextInput(session, nameval, value = valuetoupdate)
    }
    else {
      updateTextInput(session, nameval, value = as.numeric(valuetoupdate))
    }
  }
  
 }
  
 })
})

Example URL to test: 127.0.0.1:5767/?symbol=BBB,AAA,CCC,DDD&date_start=2005-01-02&period_select=2&smaLen=153&usema=1

edited Sep 19 at 15:29

Nimantha

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answered Jan 15, 2016 at 0:32

Jason S

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2 Comments

Andrew Over a year ago

Hi Jason, I am trying to something similiar to pass two arguments to updateselectinput, but no success until now, stackoverflow.com/questions/65520716/…

faidherbard Over a year ago

Hello Jason, this answer is not generic enough to update anything other than textInput (since only updateTextInput is used). Also the multi-parameter to single input case given is not handled (parameter symbol in the example URL, see also question of Andrew in comment).

Jake · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-03 17:10:11Z

5

Shiny App: How to Pass Multiple Tokens/Parameters through URL

The standard delimeter for tokens passed through url to shiny app is the & symbol.

Example shiny app code:

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  observe({
    query <- parseQueryString(session$clientData$url_search)
    if (!is.null(query[['paramA']])) {
        updateTextInput(session, "InputLabel_A", value = query[['paramA']])
    }
    if (!is.null(query[['paramB']])) {
        updateTextInput(session, "InputLabel_A", value = query[['paramB']])
    }
  })
  # ... R code that makes your app produce output ..
}

Coresponding URL example: http://localhost.com/?paramA=hello&?paramB=world

Reference: parseQueryString Docs

answered Jan 3, 2021 at 17:10

Jake

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Comments

Nimantha · Accepted Answer · 2025-09-19 15:28:17Z

Building off DeanAttali's idea, this snippet will re-generate the URL at the top so that users can copy the link for sharing to others.

The stringr:: part can probably be enhanced to be more URL-friendly.

library(stringr)
library(glue)
library(shiny)

# http://127.0.0.1:8080/?text=hello+world+I%27m+a+shiny+app
shinyApp(
    ui = fluidPage(
        textOutput("url"),
        textInput("text", "Text", ""),
    ),
    server = function(input, output, session) {
        observe({
            query <- parseQueryString(session$clientData$url_search)
            if (!is.null(query[['text']])) {
                updateTextInput(session, "text", value = query[['text']])
            }
        })
        
        output$url <- renderText({
            stringr::str_replace_all(glue::glue("http://127.0.0.1:8080/?text={input$text}"), ' ', '+')
                
        })
    },
    options=list(port=8080)
)

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