Write editable shiny Datatable to .csv file

Question

I'm writing a shiny app that loads a list of names and dates and displays them in a datatable.

I want to use the editable functionality of datatables to allow the user to update one of the dates, click a save button and overwrite the original data with the updated data.

This is what I have so far;

library(shiny)
library(shinydashboard)
library(tidyverse)
library(DT)


users <- reactiveFileReader(
  intervalMillis = 100000,  
  NULL,
  filePath = 'appData/userTest.csv',
  readFunc = read.csv,
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)

header <- dashboardHeader(title = "demo")
sidebar <- dashboardSidebar(uiOutput('sidebar'))
body <- dashboardBody(uiOutput("body"))

f1 <- fluidRow(
  box(
    dataTableOutput('userTable'),
    width = 6
  )
)

ui <- dashboardPage(title = 'admin function test', header, sidebar, body, skin='blue')

server <- function(input, output, session){

  output$body <- renderUI({
    tabItems(
      tabItem(
        tabName = 'admin', class = 'active', h2(f1)
      )
    )
  })

  output$sidebar <- renderUI({
    sidebarMenu(id = 'sidebarmenu',
                menuItem("admin", tabName = "admin", icon = icon("adjust")),
                actionButton("do", 'save', icon = icon('redo'))
    )
  })

  observeEvent(
    input$do,{
      write.csv(users(),'appData/userTest.csv', row.names = FALSE)
    })

  output$userTable <- renderDataTable({
    DT::datatable(users(),
                  editable = TRUE)
  })
}

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

My data looks like this;

   userName      start        end
1      John 06/08/2019       <NA>
2      Mary 01/01/2019       <NA>
3      Mike 23/10/2019 01/10/2019
4     Steve 25/07/2019       <NA>
5      Kate 01/01/2019 29/04/2019

While this does save the users() data, it only saves the original dataset, not the data from the edited table; I need the user to be able to enter a date, click save, then for the reactiveFileReader to load the dataset with the changes applied.

Possibly I'm misunderstanding something fundamental with how the editable tables work...

Can this be done?

Answer 1

So I figured out that adding the following;

edited <- reactive({editData(users(), input$userTable_cell_edit, proxy = NULL, rownames = FALSE, resetPaging = FALSE)})

observeEvent(
    input$do,{
      write.csv(edited(),'appData/userTest.csv', row.names = FALSE)
    })

allows me to edit a single cell and update the csv. It doesn't allow me to edit more than one cell at a time, however. Will post a new question

edit: posted new question Editing multiple cells in a datatable in shiny