NEWS.md
In blsR: Make Requests from the Bureau of Labor Statistics API

blsR 0.5.0

## New functionality * Managing the API key can now be done via the BLS_API_KEY environment variable. This can be done using a .Renviron file or manually by setting the key with the new bls_set_key function. Functions which previously required the argument api_key now default to the result of bls_set_key * get_n_series and all functions downstream of it now support automatic spanning of lists of series_ids longer than the API limit by breaking up the query into multiple API calls.

## Other Changes * Function arguments that previously defaulted to NA now default to NULL * Major refactor of documentation

## Bug Fixes * get_latest_observation's argument was incorrectly named survey_id instead of series_id

blsR 0.4.0

Previously, the get_n_series documentation state that ... was passed to query_n_series. This was both inaccurate and inconsistent with the behavior of the other get_* functions. get_n_series arguments were updated to capture all of the query_n_series arguments and pass ... to bls_request
Previously, calling get_n_series for only 1 series would fail due to a json encoding issue stemming from a length 1 vector being coerced to a scalar within httr::POST in bls_request.
Previously, data_as_table would return a variable number of columns based on the shape of the input. This led to unpredictable output and caused issues when merging multiple requests for different time spans. Going forward data_as_table will return a tibble with only 4 columns (year, period, periodName, and value). Users that wish to access aspects, footnotes, calculations, or the 'latest' flag should use get_n_series.
As a result of the changes to data_as_table, get_series_table and get_n_series_table no longer include the latest or footnotes columns. This fixes a condition where requesting aspects for a series without aspects would cause the table to have zero rows and a condition where the latest column could disappear between two identical calls if the data was updated.
Previously, pagination for periods exceeding the API limits was done automatically in both get_series_table and get_series_tables. Pagination behavior has been renamed to 'spanning', removed from the previous points of implementation and implemented as three spanning functions following a map-reduce pattern:
- span_series_request - encapsulates all of the spanning behavior
- span_request_queries - creates multiple conforming queries
- reduce_spanned_responses - merges the results of multiple queries The spanning behavior is now implemented at get_series and get_n_series, which removes the burden of merging multiple requests from the higher level get_series_table and get_n_series_table functions and allows users to create their own high-level functions to alter the presentation without having to be aware of the multiple requests. Spanning behavior may be turned off by setting the span argument to FALSE.

blsR 0.3.2

Previously, if get_series_table or get_series_tables were called for a date range and series combination with no observations available, an error was triggered by data_as_table failing. Series and period combinations with no results now return NA.
get_series_table and get_series_tables now notify if the request is broken up into multiple API calls.
For requests broken up into multiple API calls, get_series_tables now merges the results descending order to match the order of the returned data.
get_series and get_n_series now notify if request returns 0 observations
data_as_table throws an error if data argument is empty or not a list.

blsR 0.3.1

Previously, when merge_tables was used applied to tables with different periods, results were dependent on the order in which tables were arranged-in on the arguments list due to the use of 'left_join' logic. The updated implementation will return a row for every period in any of the tables, making it insensitive to the order of the tables in the input. As a side-effect of the implementation the resulting table will return the merged table ordered-by the column(s) in the join_by argument in ascending order.

blsR 0.3.0

data_as_table, get_series_table, get_series_tables, and get_n_series_table all have new optional parameter "parse_values" which will cast numeric strings into numeric values
bls_request has new optional process_response argument which gives users access to the raw API response
get series documentation improved
Add tidy_table_as_zoo for users of zoo and xts

blsR 0.2.1

edit DESCRIPTION to make check_rhub() happy

blsR 0.2.0

Add warning if attempting to request more than 20 years
Allow get_series_table and get_series_tables to request more than 20 years of data by making multiple requests
Introduce live tests if BLS_API_TEST_KEY env variable is set
Expand documentation
tidy_periods now puts month and quarter column after year
Improve README