pvsR (version 0.1.1)

CandidateBio.getAddlBio: Get a candidate's additional biographical information

Description

This function is a wrapper for the CandidateBio.getAddlBio() method of the PVS API CandidateBio class which grabs the extended biographical information for each candidate that has one. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all candidate-IDs given as a function input, extracts the XML values from the returned XML file(s) and returns them arranged in one data frame.

Usage

CandidateBio.getAddlBio(candidateId)

Arguments

candidateId

a character string or list of character strings with the candidate ID(s) (see references for details)

Value

• A data frame with a row for each candidate and columns with variables describing the candidate. The returned data frame contains a row for each candidate and columns with the following variables describing the candidate: addlBio.candidate.shortTitle, addlBio.candidate.firstName, addlBio.candidate.nickName, addlBio.candidate.middleName, addlBio.candidate.lastName, addlBio.candidate.suffix, addlBio.additional.item*.name, addlBio.additional.item*.data

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/CandidateBio.html Use Candidates.getByOfficeState(), Candidates.getByOfficeTypeState(), Candidates.getByLastname(), Candidates.getByLevenshtein(), Candidates.getByElection(), Candidates.getByDistrict() or Candidates.getByZip() to get a list of candidate IDs.

Examples

# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as character string in the pvs.key variable:
pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get additional biographical data on Barak Obama
obama <- CandidateBio.getAddlBio(9490)
obama
# get additional biographical data on Barak Obama and Mitt Romney
onr <- CandidateBio.getAddlBio(list(9490,21942))
onr