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redcapAPI (version 2.0)

exportMetaData: Export Meta Data from a REDCap Database

Description

Retrieves the meta data for a REDcap database, including field names, labels, types, formulas, etc. This file can be used to parse levels of factors, apply labels, and other data management tasks once the data are retrieved

Usage

exportMetaData(rcon, ...)

# S3 method for redcapDbConnection exportMetaData(rcon, ...)

# S3 method for redcapApiConnection exportMetaData(rcon, fields = NULL, forms = NULL, error_handling = getOption("redcap_error_handling"), ...)

Arguments

rcon

A REDCap connection object as generated by redcapConnection.

...

Arguments to be passed to other methods.

fields

A character vector of field names for which the metadata is to be retrieved.

forms

A character vector of forms for which the metadata is to be retrieved. Note that if a form name is given, all of the fields on that form will be returned, regardless of whether it is included in fields or not. Be careful to use the form names in the second column of the data dictionary, and not the display names shown on the webpage.

error_handling

An option for how to handle errors returned by the API. see redcap_error

REDCap API Documentation

This function allows you to export the metadata for a project

REDCap Version

5.8.2+ (and earlier, but we don't know how much earlier)

Known REDCap Limitations

The API doesn't respond to the fields and forms arguments. It always returns the full data dictionary.

Details

A record of this export is placed in the REDCap logging page, but the file that is exported is not stored in the database.

References

This functionality was originally developed by Jeffrey Horner in the redcap package. https://github.com/vubiostat/redcap

Please refer to your institution's API documentation.

Additional details on API parameters are found on the package wiki at https://github.com/nutterb/redcapAPI/wiki/REDCap-API-Parameters