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, return_wide = FALSE,
  gapfill, freq, cache, lang = c("en", "es", "fr", "ar", "zh"),
  removeNA = TRUE, POSIXct = FALSE, include_dec = FALSE,
  include_unit = FALSE, include_obsStatus = FALSE,
  include_lastUpdated = 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, and incomeID. Additional special values include aggregates, which returns only aggregates, and countries_only, which returns all countries without aggregates.

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

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

return_wide

Logical. If TRUE data is returned in a wide format instead of long, with a column named for each indicatorID. To necessitate this transformation, the indicator column, that provides the human readable description is dropped. This field is available through from the indicator data frame of wbcache or wb_cachelist, or the result of wbindicators. Default is FALSE

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.

include_dec

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

include_unit

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

include_obsStatus

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

include_lastUpdated

if TRUE, the column lastUpdated is not removed from the return. if FALSE, this column is removed. If TRUE and POSIXct = TRUE then column will be of class Date

Value

Data frame with all available requested data.

Examples

Run this code

# NOT RUN {
 # GDP at market prices (current US$) for all available countries and regions
 
# }
# NOT RUN {
wb(indicator = "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", startdate = 2000, enddate = 2016)
# }
# NOT RUN {
 # GDP and Population in long format for the most recent 20 observations
 
# }
# NOT RUN {
wb(indicator = c("SP.POP.TOTL","NY.GDP.MKTP.CD"), mrv = 20)
# }
# NOT RUN {
 # GDP and Population in wide format for the most recent 20 observations
 
# }
# NOT RUN {
wb(indicator = c("SP.POP.TOTL","NY.GDP.MKTP.CD"), mrv = 20, return_wide = TRUE)
# }
# NOT RUN {
 # 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)

 # GDP at market prices (current US$) for only available countries
 
# }
# NOT RUN {
wb(country = "countries_only", indicator = "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", startdate = 2000, enddate = 2016)
# }
# NOT RUN {
 # GDP at market prices (current US$) for only available aggregate regions
 
# }
# NOT RUN {
wb(country = "aggregates", indicator = "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD", startdate = 2000, enddate = 2016)
# }
# NOT RUN {
 # 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")
# }

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