Can't read Excel files in R shiny

Question

I have an excel file with different sheets, and I want to read it in the server side, while in the ui side the user uploads the file.

Since I have a large code I can't paste it here that's why I will use a little example:

library(shiny)
library(readxl)

shinyApp(
  ui = fluidPage(
    fileInput("file","Upload the file")
  ),
  server = function(input, output) {

    sheets <- readxl::excel_sheets(input$file$datapath)
    x <- lapply(sheets, function(X) readxl::read_excel(input$file$datapath, sheet = X))
    names(x) <- sheets

  }
)

But unfortunately I get an error, the function can't find the file given a datapath. But what is interesting is when I use the fread() function it recognizes the file in input$file$datapath but it can't read .xlsx files.

I have already tried the solutions in this question but it didn't work, somehow the paste paste() function returns 0.xlsx and my file is like fileName.xlsx , any solution would be very helpful.

Answer 1

In the server side you need a reactive environment definition:

server = function(input, output) {
    data <- reactive({
    sheets <- excel_sheets(input$file$datapath)
    x <- lapply(sheets, function(X) readxl::read_excel(input$file$datapath, sheet = X))
    names(x) <- sheets
    return(x)
})
}

EDIT: Using your source of reference "read_excel" in a Shiny app and function you used to read multiple sheets in a list of data frame Read all worksheets in an Excel workbook into an R list with data.frames you can do the below, it reads in the lists and renders the str(lists)

library(shiny)
library(readxl)

shinyApp(
 ui = fluidPage(
  fileInput("file","Upload the file"),
  verbatimTextOutput("list_sheets")
),
 server = function(input, output) { 
 read_excel_allsheets <- function(filename) {
  sheets <- readxl::excel_sheets(filename)
  x <-    lapply(sheets, function(X) readxl::read_excel(filename, sheet = X))
  names(x) <- sheets
  x
}
 output$list_sheets <- renderPrint({      
  inFile <- input$file
  if(is.null(inFile)){
    return(NULL)
  }
  file.rename(inFile$datapath,paste(inFile$datapath, ".xlsx", sep=""))
  list_dfs <- read_excel_allsheets(paste(inFile$datapath, ".xlsx", sep=""))
  str(list_dfs)
})
}
)

The problem you encountered ("Missing file extension") is due to the incorrect translation of the file path into shiny.