How to read names of the files but not their content into shiny app? Reformulated

shiny
1

Question

Is it possible to read only the names of the files supplied by the user of the application into the shiny app?

Background

I want to use shiny app to read multiple names of the files supplied by the user of the app in order to make a text file (macro) containing the filenames for the user to be downloaded and used locally.

fileInput()

I have tried using fileInput() function, but as I understand it the fileInput() function reads files and gives me the names in file$names. However as I understand it , it also reads the content of the files by default. For my application I need to read names of 50-100 images each 1-2 MB big, so this will cause problems in the free shinyapps.io tier (not tested, just an assumption based on speed of reading much smaller csv files).

shinyFiles

The kindly suggested solution by @tzwagerman using the shinyFiles does not work in my experience, as it gives me the file structure on the computer running the app (using the shinyFilesExample())

Ideas for solution?

Have anyone encountered and solved this problem previously?
I am pretty inexperienced in R and shiny apps development.

Thank you

Thank you for your suggestions, comments, redirection to another thread(s).

Vladimir Vinarsky
The curious mechanobiologist

2

Hi Vladimir,

I think the shinyFiles package is what you're looking for.

See: https://github.com/thomasp85/shinyFiles

3

Thank you for the suggestion, will check it out:)

Have nice weekend

Vladimir

4

Hi,
thanks again for the suggestion. I looked at description of the package, and tested the example application in the package. As I understand it now, the filesystem i am accessing by the app is the server/pc where the app server is running. But I would need to access the paths (or basenmes) of the files selcted/in directory on the client side (pc where the browser is running).
Could you please let me know whether I am missing something (some setting to enable it?).
Thank you
Vladimir

5

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