pvsR (version 0.1.1)

Officials.getByLevenshtein: Get a list of officials according to an approximate last name match

Description

This function is a wrapper for the Officials.getByLevenshtein() method of the PVS API Officials class which grabs a list of officials according to an approximate last name match. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all last names given as a function input, extracts the XML values from the returned XML file(s) and returns them arranged in one data frame.

Usage

Officials.getByLevenshtein(lastName)

Arguments

lastName

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

Value

• A data frame with a row for each official and columns with variables describing the official. The returned data frame contains a row for each official and columns with the following variables describing the official: candidateList.candidate*.candidateId, candidateList.candidate*.firstName, candidateList.candidate*.nickName, candidateList.candidate*.middleName, candidateList.candidate*.lastName, candidateList.candidate*.suffix, candidateList.candidate*.title, candidateList.candidate*.electionParties, candidateList.candidate*.officeParties, candidatelist.candidate*.officeStatus, candidateList.candidate*.officeDistrictId, candidateList.candidate*.officeDistrictName, candidateList.candidate*.officeTypeId, candidateList.candidate*.officeId, candidateList.candidate*.officeName, candidateList.candidate*.officeStateId.

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Officials.html

Examples

# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as character string in the pvs.key variable:
pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get a list of officials with similar last names
names <- Officials.getByLevenshtein(list("Miller","Fine"))