shinyobserversuioutput

radioButtons() vs. uiOutput() and observeEvent(input[[""]] - shiny


I try to observe an event in shiny. If I define a radio manually, it will be observed correctly - output: print(paste0("SELECT * FROM daten;")). I want to avoid writing several tenths of radio buttons in ui.r. Thus I wrote a loop in the server part. But the same observeEvent() does not react on my "loop-listed" radio buttons which where correctly built in shiny app. I have no idea why.

I wrote a minimal example:

library(shiny)

shinyApp(
  ui = fluidPage(
    
    ####### manually set radio #######
    print("This radio 'pd1' will be observed:"),
    radioButtons(inputId = "pd1", label = "value:", choices = c("?", "0", "1")),
    br(), br(),
    
    ####### versus looped set set radio #######
    
    uiOutput("scrlst"),
  ),
  
  server = function(input, output) {
    
    tablscr <- data.frame("1","question")
    
    ###################### observeEvent
    ##### "counter" for several items (in this case just 1 item)
    rv <- reactiveValues(counter = 0)
    lapply(1:dim(tablscr)[1], function(i) {
      isolate({qnum <- paste0('pd', rv$counter <- rv$counter + 1)})
      observeEvent(input[[qnum]], {print(paste0("SELECT * FROM daten;"))})
    })
    
    ### output for tenths of items in one loop  (in this case just 1 item)
    output$scrlst <- renderUI({
      tagList(
        scr <- list(),
        for (sq in 1:dim(tablscr)[1]){
          scr[[sq]] = list(sq,
                           print("This radio 'pd1' will not be observed:"),
                           radioButtons(inputId = "pd1", label = "value:", choices = c("?", "0", "1")),
                           br(),
                           br()
          )
        },
        return(scr),
      )
    })
  }
)

Solution

  • Your tagList containing a loop and a return statement sounds weird. Moreover you have a duplicated id pd1. Here is a working code:

    library(shiny)
    
    shinyApp(
      ui = fluidPage(
        
        uiOutput("scrlst")
        
      ),
      
      server = function(input, output) {
        
        tablscr <- data.frame(c("1","2"), c("question", "hello"))
        
        lapply(1:nrow(tablscr), function(i) {
          qnum <- paste0('pd', i)
          observeEvent(input[[qnum]], {print(paste0("SELECT * FROM daten;"))})
        })
        
        output$scrlst <- renderUI({
          do.call(tagList, lapply(1:nrow(tablscr), function(i){
            tagList(
              radioButtons(paste0("pd", i), label = "value:", choices = c("?", "0", "1")),
              br(), br()
            )
          }))
        })
        
      }
    )