Can I use PhantomJS or assume a firefox instalattion for usage with RSelenium in CRAN Machines?

On May 19, 2016, at 7:49 AM, Marcelo Perlin <marceloperlin at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Guys,

First time posting here.

I have a CRAN package called GetTDData that downloads and reads public data
from a government website (
http://www.tesouro.fazenda.gov.br/tesouro-direto-balanco-e-estatisticas).

Recently (today), the website has changed its structure by removing
permanent links of the files and creating a "random" html address for the
files that really matter. This means that when I download the souce html
code, I don't have the information for the actual links, but just a bunch
of code.

In the past I have dealed with this type of problem by forcing the
renderization of the page using RSelenium with firefox or PhantomJS and
then capturing the desired href locations.

My question is, if integrate my code with RSelenium using firefox or
PhantonJS, will it pass on all arquitectures (win, linux, solaris) of CRAN?

-- 
Marcelo Perlin
Professor Adjunto | Escola de Administra??o

On May 19, 2016, at 7:49 AM, Marcelo Perlin <marceloperlin at gmail.com>

wrote:

Hi Guys,

First time posting here.

I have a CRAN package called GetTDData that downloads and reads public

data

from a government website (
http://www.tesouro.fazenda.gov.br/tesouro-direto-balanco-e-estatisticas

).

Recently (today), the website has changed its structure by removing
permanent links of the files and creating a "random" html address for the
files that really matter. This means that when I download the souce html
code, I don't have the information for the actual links, but just a bunch
of code.

In the past I have dealed with this type of problem by forcing the
renderization of the page using RSelenium with firefox or PhantomJS and
then capturing the desired href locations.

My question is, if integrate my code with RSelenium using firefox or
PhantonJS, will it pass on all arquitectures (win, linux, solaris) of

CRAN?

I dn't have a lot of experience at this but I can say that at least one
person whose experience I trust recentlyreported in Rhelp that RSelenium
tends to be a fragile interface. Nonetheless, he does use it on occasion
and it clearly "works" on more than one platform. If your code is not
confidential and the website has at least a guest login capacity, you could
post it here and ask for trial runs on whatever platform(s) you may not
have testing capacities for.

--
Marcelo Perlin
Professor Adjunto | Escola de Administra??o

--

David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA