pvsR (version 0.1.1)

Votes.getCategories: Get a list of categories that contain released bills according to year and state

Description

This function is a wrapper for the Votes.getCategories() method of the PVS API Votes class which dumps categories that contain released bills according to year and state. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all years and 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

Votes.getCategories(year, stateId="NA")

Arguments

year

a character string or list of character strings with the year(s)

stateId

(optional) a character string or list of character strings with the state ID(s) (default: "NA", for "National") (see references for details)

Value

• A data frame with a row for each category and columns with variables describing the category. The returned data frame contains a row for each category and columns with the following variables describing the category: categories.category*.categoryId, categories.category*.name.

References

http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Votes.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 a list of categories
categories <- Votes.getCategories(2012)
categories