pvsR (version 0.1.1)

State.getState: Get information about a state

Description

This function is a wrapper for the State.getState() method of the PVS API State class which grabs various data on a state. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all state 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

State.getState(stateId)

Arguments

stateId

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

Value

• A data frame with a row for each state and columns with variables describing the state. The returned data frame contains a row for each state and columns with the following variables describing the state: state.details.stateId, state.details.stateType, state.details.name, state.details.nickName, state.details.capital, state.details.area, state.details.population, state.details.statehood, state.details.motto, state.details.flower, state.details.tree, state.details.bird, state.details.highPoint, state.details.lowPoint, state.details.bicameral, state.details.upperLegis, state.details.lowerLegis, state.details.ltGov, state.details.senators, state.details.reps, state.details.termLimit, state.details.termLength, state.details.billUrl, state.details.voteUrl, state.details.voterReg, state.details.primaryDate, state.details.generalDate, state.details.absenteeWho, state.details.absenteeHow, state.details.absenteeWhen, state.details.largestCity, state.details.rollUpper, state.details.rollLower, state.details.usCircuit.

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/State.html Use State.getStateIDs() to get a list of state IDs.

Examples

# First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as character string in the pvs.key variable:
pvs.key <- "yourkey"
# get information about certain states
stateinfo <- State.getState(list("FL","NY"))
stateinfo