Scrap webpage that requires button click - r

Question

I am trying to scrap data from the link below. I need to click and download a csv file available in the csv button from the webpage.
library(netstat)
library(RSelenium)
url <- https://gtr.ukri.org/search/project?term=%22climate+change%22+OR+%22climate+crisis%22&fetchSize=25&selectedSortableField=&selectedSortOrder=&fields=pro.gr%2Cpro.t%2Cpro.a%2Cpro.orcidId%2Cper.fn%2Cper.on%2Cper.sn%2Cper.fnsn%2Cper.orcidId%2Cper.org.n%2Cper.pro.t%2Cper.pro.abs%2Cpub.t%2Cpub.a%2Cpub.orcidId%2Corg.n%2Corg.orcidId%2Cacp.t%2Cacp.d%2Cacp.i%2Cacp.oid%2Ckf.d%2Ckf.oid%2Cis.t%2Cis.d%2Cis.oid%2Ccol.i%2Ccol.d%2Ccol.c%2Ccol.dept%2Ccol.org%2Ccol.pc%2Ccol.pic%2Ccol.oid%2Cip.t%2Cip.d%2Cip.i%2Cip.oid%2Cpol.i%2Cpol.gt%2Cpol.in%2Cpol.oid%2Cprod.t%2Cprod.d%2Cprod.i%2Cprod.oid%2Crtp.t%2Crtp.d%2Crtp.i%2Crtp.oid%2Crdm.t%2Crdm.d%2Crdm.i%2Crdm.oid%2Cstp.t%2Cstp.d%2Cstp.i%2Cstp.oid%2Cso.t%2Cso.d%2Cso.cn%2Cso.i%2Cso.oid%2Cff.t%2Cff.d%2Cff.c%2Cff.org%2Cff.dept%2Cff.oid%2Cdis.t%2Cdis.d%2Cdis.i%2Cdis.oid%2Ccpro.rtpc%2Ccpro.rcpgm%2Ccpro.hlt&type=#/csvConfirm
I am struggling to implement that using Selenium. Here is the code I have so far.
rD <- rsDriver(port= free_port(), browser = "chrome", chromever = "106.0.5249.21", check = TRUE, verbose = TRUE)
remote_driver <- rD[["client"]]
remDr <- rD$client
remDr$navigate(url)
webElem <- remDr$findElement(using = "css", "content gtr-body d-flex flex-column ng-scope")
webElem$clickElement()

Answer 1

You can often just record the network log and see what request is sent when hitting the download button. In Chrome, right click Inspect, then look for the network tab. In this case there is only one request sent:
Right click and "copy as cURL" to see the whole request or just click copy URL, since the cookies and headers are not necessary here. I wrote a quick function around the task of querying the site:
dl_ukri <- function(query,
destfile = paste0(query, ".csv"),
size = 25L,
quiet_download = FALSE) {
url <- paste0(
"https://gtr.ukri.org/search/project/csv?term=",
urltools::url_encode(query),
"&selectedFacets=&fields=acp.d,is.t,prod.t,pol.oid,acp.oid,rtp.t,pol.in,prod.i,per.pro.abs,acp.i,col.org,acp.t,is.d,is.oid,cpro.rtpc,prod.d,stp.oid,rtp.i,rdm.oid,rtp.d,col.dept,ff.d,ff.c,col.pc,pub.t,kf.d,dis.t,col.oid,pro.t,per.sn,org.orcidId,per.on,ff.dept,rdm.t,org.n,dis.d,prod.oid,so.cn,dis.i,pro.a,pub.orcidId,pol.gt,rdm.i,rdm.d,so.oid,per.fnsn,per.org.n,per.pro.t,pro.orcidId,pub.a,col.d,per.orcidId,col.c,ip.i,pro.gr,pol.i,so.t,per.fn,col.i,ip.t,ff.oid,stp.i,so.i,cpro.rcpgm,cpro.hlt,col.pic,so.d,ff.t,ip.d,dis.oid,ip.oid,stp.d,rtp.oid,ff.org,kf.oid,stp.t&type=&selectedSortableField=score&selectedSortOrder=DESC"
)
curl::curl_download(url, destfile, quiet = quiet_download)
}
Testing this with your original search:
dl_ukri('"climate change" OR "climate crisis"', destfile = "test.csv")
readr::read_csv("test.csv")
#> Rows: 5894 Columns: 25
#> ── Column specification ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#> Delimiter: ","
#> chr (23): FundingOrgName, ProjectReference, LeadROName, Department, ProjectC...
#> dbl (2): AwardPounds, ExpenditurePounds
#>
#> ℹ Use `spec()` to retrieve the full column specification for this data.
#> ℹ Specify the column types or set `show_col_types = FALSE` to quiet this message.
#> # A tibble: 5,894 × 25
#> FundingOrgN…¹ Proje…² LeadR…³ Depar…⁴ Proje…⁵ PISur…⁶ PIFir…⁷ PIOth…⁸ PI OR…⁹
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 ESRC ES/W00… Univer… School… Fellow… Thew Harriet Christ… http:/…
#> 2 AHRC AH/W00… Univer… Arts L… Resear… Scott Peter Manley <NA>
#> 3 AHRC 2609218 Queen … Drama Studen… <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA>
#> 4 UKRI MR/V02… Univer… Politi… Fellow… Spaiser Viktor… <NA> http:/…
#> 5 MRC MC_PC_… Univer… <NA> Intram… Alessi Dario Renato <NA>
#> 6 AHRC 1948811 Royal … School… Studen… <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA>
#> 7 EPSRC 2688399 Brunel… Chemic… Studen… <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA>
#> 8 ESRC ES/T01… Univer… Social… Resear… Walker Cather… Louise http:/…
#> 9 AHRC AH/X00… Queen … Drama Resear… Herita… Paul <NA> http:/…
#> 10 ESRC 2272756 Univer… Sch of… Studen… <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA>
#> # … with 5,884 more rows, 16 more variables: StudentSurname <chr>,
#> # StudentFirstName <chr>, StudentOtherNames <chr>, `Student ORCID iD` <chr>,
#> # Title <chr>, StartDate <chr>, EndDate <chr>, AwardPounds <dbl>,
#> # ExpenditurePounds <dbl>, Region <chr>, Status <chr>, GTRProjectUrl <chr>,
#> # ProjectId <chr>, FundingOrgId <chr>, LeadROId <chr>, PIId <chr>, and
#> # abbreviated variable names ¹​FundingOrgName, ²​ProjectReference, ³​LeadROName,
#> # ⁴​Department, ⁵​ProjectCategory, ⁶​PISurname, ⁷​PIFirstName, ⁸​PIOtherNames, …
Created on 2022-10-17 with reprex v2.0.2
Voilà. I also played around with the fetchSize=25 which is in the original URL. But it does not seem to do anything, so I just omitted it.