using Rcurl with HTTPs

Question

I tried the following code in R on windows:

library(RCurl)
postForm(\"https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin/\",
    \"email\" = \"me@gmail.com\",
    \         


        

Answer 1

You need to install a SSL library.

1. For windows you can get one here: Download "OpenSSL for Windows" version 0.9.8k

2. Unzip to a temporary folder, and copy the files "libeay32.dll" and "ssleay32.dll" from the "bin" sub-folder to R\library\RCurl\lib\i386.

3. Also you might copy it into the same directory as the R.exe.

4. Then check if you have access to the https protocol:

   library(RCurl)
   curlVersion()$protocol 
   ## [1] "tftp"   "ftp"    "telnet" "dict"   "ldap"   "http"   "file"   "https"     
   ## [9] "ftps"   "scp"    "sftp"  
   

5. Then install a new set of credential files:

   ca-bundle.crt can be found at : http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

   rename / copy to ca-bundle.crt

6. Test with this:

   getURL("https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin/?service=finance&email=me@gmail.com&Passwd=abcd&source=Test-1", 
          cainfo = "path to R/library/RCurl/CurlSSL/ca-bundle.crt")