ChatStat

ChatStat is an R package to get data from online chat platforms, in tidy formats. It currently only supports Matrix, but more backends are planned.

Discussion

Come talk in #rmatrixstats:matrix.org to discuss ChatStat or get help using it!

Installation

You can install the development version of ChatStat from GitHub with:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("GregSutcliffe/ChatStat")

If you’re new to R, go with this:

# install R from your package manager
mkdir chatstats && cd chatstats
Rscript -e 'install.packages("renv")'
Rscript -e 'renv::init()'
Rscript -e 'install.packages("remotes")'
Rscript -e 'remotes::install_github("GregSutcliffe/ChatStat")'
R

Which will set up a new renv environment with ChatStat installed and ready to use.

Making raw Matrix API calls

You will need your access_token and your homeserver URL, and optionally a port if your homeserver is non-standard:

# Authentication
Sys.setenv('token' = 'syt_foobarbaz',
            'host' = 'matrix.org')

You can then get a JSON list of events by providing a roomID that you access to:

library(ChatStat)
df <- room_history('!layMvdZSboJeKiyTAL:matrix.org', # rmeta:matrix.org
                   since = '2021-12-01 00:00:00')
length(df)

See https://spec.matrix.org/v1.1/client-server-api/ for more details of the Matrix Client-Server API Spec