wbstats (version 0.1)

wb: Download Data from the World Bank API

Description

This function downloads the requested information using the World Bank API

Usage

wb(country = "all", indicator, startdate, enddate, mrv, gapfill, freq, cache, lang = c("en", "es", "fr", "ar", "zh"), removeNA = TRUE, POSIXct = FALSE, includedec = FALSE)

Arguments

country

Character vector of country or region codes. Default value is special code of all. Other permissible values are codes in the following fields from the wb_cachelist country data frame. iso3c, iso2c, regionID, adminID, incomeID, and lendingID

indicator

Character vector of indicator codes. These codes correspond to the indicatorID column from the indicator data frame of wbcache or wb_cachelist, or the result of wbindicators

startdate

Numeric or character. If numeric it must be in %Y form (i.e. four digit year). For data at the subannual granularity the API supports a format as follows: for monthly data, "2016M01" and for quarterly data, "2016Q1". This also accepts a special value of "YTD", useful for more frequently updated subannual indicators.

enddate

Numeric or character. If numeric it must be in %Y form (i.e. four digit year). For data at the subannual granularity the API supports a format as follows: for monthly data, "2016M01" and for quarterly data, "2016Q1".

mrv

Numeric. The number of Most Recent Values to return. A replacement of startdate and enddate, this number represents the number of observations you which to return starting from the most recent date of collection. Useful in conjuction with freq

gapfill

Logical. Works with mrv. if TRUE fills values, if not available, by back tracking to the next available period (max number of periods back tracked will be limited by mrv number)

freq

Character String. For fetching quarterly ("Q"), monthly("M") or yearly ("Y") values. Currently works along with mrv. Useful for querying high frequency data.

cache

List of data frames returned from wbcache. If omitted, wb_cachelist is used

lang

Language in which to return the results. If lang is unspecified, english is the default.

removeNA

if TRUE, remove any blank or NA observations that are returned. if FALSE, no blank or NA values are removed from the return.

POSIXct

if TRUE, additonal columns date_ct and granularity are added. date_ct converts the default date into a POSIXct. granularity denotes the time resolution that the date represents. Useful for subannual data and mixing subannual with annual data. If FALSE, these fields are not added.

includedec

if TRUE, the column decimal is not removed from the return. if FALSE, this column is removed

Value

Data frame with all available requested data.

Examples

# GDP at market prices (current US$) for all available countries and regions
 wb(indicator = "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", startdate = 2000, enddate = 2016)

 # query using regionID or incomeID
 # High Income Countries and Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)
 wb(country = c("HIC", "SSF"), indicator = "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", startdate = 1985, enddate = 1985)

 # if you do not know when the latest time an indicator is avaiable mrv can help
 wb(country = c("IN"), indicator = 'EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS', mrv = 1)

 # increase the mrv value to increase the number of maximum number of returns
 wb(country = c("IN"), indicator = 'EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS', mrv = 35)

 # if you want to "fill-in" the values in between actual observations use gapfill = TRUE
 # this highlights a very important difference.
 # all other parameters are the same as above, except gapfill = TRUE
 # and the results are very different
 wb(country = c("IN"), indicator = 'EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS', mrv = 35, gapfill = TRUE)

 # if you want the most recent values within a certain time frame
 wb(country = c("US"), indicator = 'SI.DST.04TH.20', startdate = 1970, enddate = 2000, mrv = 2)

 # without the freq parameter the deafult temporal granularity search is yearly
 # should return the 12 most recent years of data
 wb(country = c("CHN", "IND"), indicator = "DPANUSSPF", mrv = 12)

 # if another frequency is available for that indicator it can be accessed using the freq parameter
 # should return the 12 most recent months of data
 wb(country = c("CHN", "IND"), indicator = "DPANUSSPF", mrv = 12, freq = "M")