rdbnomics

DBnomics R client

This package provides you access to DBnomics data series. DBnomics is an open-source project with the goal of aggregating the world's economic data in one location, free of charge to the public. DBnomics covers hundreds of millions of series from international and national institutions (Eurostat, World Bank, IMF, ...).

To use this package, you have to provide the codes of the provider, dataset and series you want. You can retrieve them directly on the website. You have access to the API through this link and the documentation is here.

DBnomics is hosted on its own gitlab platform. However, in order to install the package more easily, we created a mirror of this package on github.

To install rdbnomics from CRAN :

install.packages("rdbnomics")
library(rdbnomics)

To install rdbnomics from github:

remotes::install_github("dbnomics/rdbnomics", build = TRUE, build_opts = c("--no-resave-data", "--no-manual"), force = TRUE)
library(rdbnomics)

After installation, a vignette is available to the user:

vignette("rdbnomics-tutorial")

Examples

Fetch time series by ids :

# Fetch one series from dataset 'Unemployment rate' (ZUTN) of AMECO provider:
df1 <- rdb(ids = 'AMECO/ZUTN/EA19.1.0.0.0.ZUTN')
# Fetch two series from dataset 'Unemployment rate' (ZUTN) of AMECO provider:
df2 <- rdb(ids = c('AMECO/ZUTN/EA19.1.0.0.0.ZUTN', 'AMECO/ZUTN/DNK.1.0.0.0.ZUTN'))
# Fetch two series from different datasets of different providers:
df3 <- rdb(ids = c('AMECO/ZUTN/EA19.1.0.0.0.ZUTN', 'IMF/CPI/A.AT.PCPIT_IX'))

Fetch time series by mask (only for some providers, check the list).

# Fetch one series from dataset 'Consumer Price Index' (CPI) of IMF:
df1 <- rdb('IMF', 'CPI', mask = 'M.DE.PCPIEC_WT')
# Fetch two series from dataset 'Consumer Price Index' (CPI) of IMF:
df2 <- rdb('IMF', 'CPI', mask = 'M.DE+FR.PCPIEC_WT')
# Fetch all series along one dimension from dataset 'Consumer Price Index' (CPI) of IMF:
df3 <- rdb('IMF', 'CPI', mask = 'M..PCPIEC_WT')
# Fetch series along multiple dimensions from dataset 'Consumer Price Index' (CPI) of IMF:
df4 <- rdb('IMF', 'CPI', mask = 'M..PCPIEC_IX+PCPIA_IX')

Fetch time series by dimensions :

# Fetch one value of one dimension from dataset 'Unemployment rate' (ZUTN) of AMECO provider:
df1 <- rdb('AMECO', 'ZUTN', dimensions = '{"geo": ["ea12"]}')
# Fetch two values of one dimension from dataset 'Unemployment rate' (ZUTN) of AMECO provider:
df2 <- rdb('AMECO', 'ZUTN', dimensions = '{"geo": ["ea12", "dnk"]}')
# Fetch several values of several dimensions from dataset 'Doing business' (DB) of World Bank:
df3 <- rdb('WB', 'DB', dimensions = '{"country": ["DZ", "PE"],"indicator": ["ENF.CONT.COEN.COST.ZS","IC.REG.COST.PC.FE.ZS"]}')

Fetch one series from dataset 'Doing Business' of WB provider:

df1 <- rdb_by_api_link('https://api.db.nomics.world/v21/series?dimensions=%7B%22country%22%3A%5B%22FR%22%2C%22IT%22%2C%22ES%22%5D%2C%22indicator%22%3A%5B%22IC.REG.PROC.FE.NO%22%5D%7D&provider_code=WB&dataset_code=DB&format=json')

Connection error Could not resolve host

When using the functions rdb or rdb_by_api_link, you may come across the following error:

Error in open.connection(con, "rb") :
  Could not resolve host: api.db.nomics.world

This error is due to a fail of the function fromJSON. To get round this situation, you can use the readLines function before the fromJSON function by setting an option of the package:

options(rdbnomics.use_readLines = TRUE)

df1 <- rdb(ids = 'AMECO/ZUTN/EA19.1.0.0.0.ZUTN')

df2 <- rdb(ids = c('AMECO/ZUTN/EA19.1.0.0.0.ZUTN', 'AMECO/ZUTN/DNK.1.0.0.0.ZUTN'))

or by using the argument use_readLines of the function rdb_by_api_link:

df1 <- rdb(ids = 'AMECO/ZUTN/EA19.1.0.0.0.ZUTN', use_readLines = TRUE)

df2 <- rdb(ids = c('AMECO/ZUTN/EA19.1.0.0.0.ZUTN', 'AMECO/ZUTN/DNK.1.0.0.0.ZUTN'), use_readLines = TRUE)