R - curl Github API to access private repos

Question

All I'm trying to do is read all the repos and issues in my organizations private repos. I can from my Windows 7 cmd.exe execute

curl -u "user:pass" https://api.github.com/orgs/:org/repos

and I get back all of my repositories. I can pipe this to a file:

curl -u "user:pass" https://api.github.com/orgs/:org/repos > "C:\Users\Location\file.txt"

and this saves the JSON output. I can replicate this in R but in what seems like a terrible way.

fullRepos = system('curl -s -u "user:pass" -G https://api.github.com/orgs/:org/repos',
                   intern=T,show.output.on.console = F)

This captures the output (intern = T) and the -s gets rid of the progress bars so I can collapse the lines and turn it into a data frame. This gets back all the repositories, public and private.

I tried using RCurl to do the same thing but the code below only provides the public repositories. The httpheader is because otherwise it the API rejects my call.

RCurl::getURL(url="https://api.github.com/orgs/:org/repos",userpwd ="user:pass",
              httpheader = c('User-Agent' = "A user agent"))

I also tried httr and it also only provides the public repositories.

httr::GET(url="https://api.github.com/orgs/:org/repos",userpwd="user:pass")

What am I doing wrong with RCurl and httr? I'd rather have a workflow that doesn't make a system command and then paste the lines together.

There are (IIRC) 3 github-API packages for R. Why aren't you using them? — hrbrmstr
– hrbrmstr, Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 15:27
I believe they are all based on OAuth which doesn't give access to private repositories. At least, I can't figure out how to get my application to request access to private repositories. Regardless of the Github specific nature here though, I'm also interested in why I can't replicate the curl call in RCurl or httr. — Mark
– Mark, Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 15:38
try httr::GET(url="https://api.github.com/orgs/:org/repos", httr::authenticate("user", "pass"), httr::verbose()) — hrbrmstr
– hrbrmstr, Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 16:02
@hrbrmstr That works! Would you post it as an answer that I can accept? — Mark
– Mark, Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 17:58

hrbrmstr · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-23 17:59:52Z

3

We can use the authenticate() helper function in httr to build the authentication header for us w/o having to manually create it. Also, verbose() can be used to debug HTTP issues:

httr::GET(url="https://api.github.com/orgs/:‌org/repos",
          httr::authenticate("user", "pass"), 
          httr::verbose())

answered Aug 23, 2016 at 17:59

hrbrmstr

79.1k11 gold badges146 silver badges209 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Amit Kohli Over a year ago

Just in case this one catches anybody off-guard, this works, but will only return first page of repos... to get second page, need to add ?page=2. Also, to actually view the content, you'll have to pass through content(x)

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

R - curl Github API to access private repos

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related