importMetaData() rejects an import of a data dictionary if any field name has just two characters or less

[ajelhajj]

In this case, my project has a variable called [or] (short for operating room). On import with the API, I receive the following error message:

> importMetaData(rcon = rcon.oto.dd, data = dd)

Error in importMetaData(rcon = rcon.oto.dd, data = dd) : 
  1 assertions failed:
 * The following field names do not conform to REDCap field name standards: {or}

I receive the same error message when I replace this field name with [ro]:

Error in importMetaData(rcon = rcon.oto.dd, data = dd) : 
  1 assertions failed:
 * The following field names do not conform to REDCap field name standards: {ro}

Uploading these data dictionaries using the GUI works just fine.

I've also tried renaming this field [and] to see if the rejection could also be due to [or] having any particular privileges as an operator but the metadata is successfully imported through the API when [and] is a field name.

[nutterb]

You're correct. Our regular expression for field names is more restrictive than REDCap field name requirements.

https://github.com/vubiostat/redcapAPI/blob/12216d232459fb3b084f682f8653d8b7a12783f5/R/constants.R#L47-L55

I'll work on a regular expression that can permit as little as a single alpha character for a field name.

This will also affect the form name regex.

[nutterb]

er, that didn't take as long as I thought.

REGEX_FIELD_NAME <- "(^[a-z]$|^[a-z][a-z,0-9]$|^[a-z](?!.*__.*)[a-z,0-9,_]+[a-z,0-9]$)"

field_name <- c("a", "ab", "a1", "a_1", 
                "a_", "_a", "a__1", 
                "1", "1a")

grepl(REGEX_FIELD_NAME, field_name, perl = TRUE)
[1]  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE

[ajelhajj]

Thank you! Would it be possible to notify me when this is complete? I appreciate your help on this.

[nutterb]

The pull request has been submitted. It's waiting on review and QA checks.

If you want to try it out ahead of that you can install it via

devtools::install_github("vubiostat/redcapAPI", ref = "333-importFile-newRecord")

[nutterb]

This is now on the main branch: devtools::install_github("vubiostat/redcapAPI")