Read Excel file from a URL using the readxl package

Question

Consider a file on the internet (like this one (note the s in https) https://evs.nci.nih.gov/ftp1/CDISC/SDTM/SDTM%20Terminology.xls

How can the sheet 2 of the file be read into R?

The following code is approximation of what is desired (but fails)

url1<-'https://evs.nci.nih.gov/ftp1/CDISC/SDTM/SDTM%20Terminology.xls'
p1f <- tempfile()
download.file(url1, p1f, mode="wb")
p1<-read_excel(path = p1f, sheet = 2)

Answer 1

This works for me on Windows:

library(readxl)
library(httr)
packageVersion("readxl")
# [1] ‘0.1.1’

GET(url1, write_disk(tf <- tempfile(fileext = ".xls")))
df <- read_excel(tf, 2L)
str(df)
# Classes ‘tbl_df’, ‘tbl’ and 'data.frame': 20131 obs. of  8 variables:
# $ Code                        : chr  "C115388" "C115800" "C115801" "C115802" ...
# $ Codelist Code               : chr  NA "C115388" "C115388" "C115388" ...
# $ Codelist Extensible (Yes/No): chr  "No" NA NA NA ...
# $ Codelist Name               : chr  "6 Minute Walk Functional Test Test Code" "6 Minute Walk Functional Test Test Code" "6 Minute Walk Functional Test Test Code" "6 Minute Walk Functional Test Test Code" ...
# $ CDISC Submission Value      : chr  "SIXMW1TC" "SIXMW101" "SIXMW102" "SIXMW103" ...
# $ CDISC Synonym(s)            : chr  "6 Minute Walk Functional Test Test Code" "SIXMW1-Distance at 1 Minute" "SIXMW1-Distance at 2 Minutes" "SIXMW1-Distance at 3 Minutes" ...
# $ CDISC Definition            : chr  "6 Minute Walk Test test code." "6 Minute Walk Test - Distance at 1 minute." "6 Minute Walk Test - Distance at 2 minutes." "6 Minute Walk Test - Distance at 3 minutes." ...
# $ NCI Preferred Term          : chr  "CDISC Functional Test 6MWT Test Code Terminology" "6MWT - Distance at 1 Minute" "6MWT - Distance at 2 Minutes" "6MWT - Distance at 3 Minutes" ...