shiny_attributes saves empty cells as "" as opposed to NA

[jeanetteclark]

In general, shiny_attributes is a bit buggy/finicky, but the biggest bug right now is that if you leave optional cells blank, it will write a data.frame with empty strings as opposed to empty cells, resulting in all sorts of validation errors. See this example:

library(EML) # 1.99.0

me <- list(individualName = list(givenName = "Jeanette", surName = "Clark"))

attributes <- data.frame(attributeName = 'length_1',
                         attributeDefinition = 'def1',
                         measurementScale = 'ratio',
                         domain = 'numericDomain',
                         unit = 'meter',
                         numberType = 'real',
                         stringsAsFactors = FALSE)

# create otherEntity as list of lists
my_eml <- list(packageId = "asdlf", system = "asdf",
  dataset = list(
  title = "A Valid EML Dataset",
  creator = me,
  contact = me,
  dataTable = list(entityName = "name", attributeList = set_attributes(attributes))))

eml_validate(my_eml)
# [1] TRUE
# attr(,"errors")
# character(0)

# don't need to make any edits, just open app and close again
att_test <- shiny_attributes(attributes = attributes)
att_test$attributes
# > att_test$attributes$attributeLabel
# [1] ""                         

my_eml_test <- list(packageId = "asdlf", system = "asdf",
               dataset = list(
                 title = "A Valid EML Dataset",
                 creator = me,
                 contact = me,
                 dataTable = list(entityName = "name", attributeList = set_attributes(att_test$attributes))))

eml_validate(my_eml_test)
# [1] FALSE
# attr(,"errors")
# [1] "Element 'attributeLabel': [facet 'minLength'] The value has a length of '0'; this underruns the allowed minimum length of '1'."      
# [2] "Element 'attributeLabel': [facet 'pattern'] The value '' is not accepted by the pattern '[\\s]*[\\S][\\s\\S]*'."                     
# [3] "Element 'attributeLabel': '' is not a valid value of the atomic type '{eml://ecoinformatics.org/resource-2.1.1}NonEmptyStringType'." 
# [4] "Element 'code': [facet 'minLength'] The value has a length of '0'; this underruns the allowed minimum length of '1'."                
# [5] "Element 'code': [facet 'pattern'] The value '' is not accepted by the pattern '[\\s]*[\\S][\\s\\S]*'."                               
# [6] "Element 'code': '' is not a valid value of the atomic type '{eml://ecoinformatics.org/resource-2.1.1}NonEmptyStringType'."           
# [7] "Element 'codeExplanation': [facet 'minLength'] The value has a length of '0'; this underruns the allowed minimum length of '1'."     
# [8] "Element 'codeExplanation': [facet 'pattern'] The value '' is not accepted by the pattern '[\\s]*[\\S][\\s\\S]*'."                    
# [9] "Element 'codeExplanation': '' is not a valid value of the atomic type '{eml://ecoinformatics.org/resource-2.1.1}NonEmptyStringType'."