R/Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel.R

In pvsR: An R package to interact with the Project Vote Smart API for scientific research

##' Get offices tracked according to branch and level
##' 
##' This function is a wrapper for the Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel() method of the PVS API Office class which grabs a list of offices Project Vote Smart keeps track of according to government branch and level. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all branch and level 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 Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel(branchId, levelId)
##' @param branchId a character string or list of character strings with the branch ID(s) (see references for details)
##' @param levelId a character string or list of character strings with the level ID(s) (see references for details)
##' @return A data frame with a row for each office and columns with the following variables describing the office:\cr offices.office*.officeId,\cr offices.office*.officeTypeId,\cr offices.office*.officeLevelId,\cr offices.office*.officeBranchId,\cr offices.office*.name,\cr offices.office*.title,\cr offices.office*.shortTitle.
##' @references http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Office.html\cr
##' Use Office.getBranches() to get branch ID(s).\cr
##' Use Office.getLevels() to get level ID(s).
##' @author Ulrich Matter <ulrich.matter-at-unibas.ch>
##' @examples
##' # First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as character string in the pvs.key variable:
##' \dontrun{pvs.key <- "yourkey"}
##' # get offices tracked for all branch and level IDs
##' \dontrun{offices <- Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel(list("E","L","J"),list("F","S","L"))}
##' \dontrun{head(offices)}
##' @export



Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel <-
function (branchId, levelId) {
  
  
  # internal function
  Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel.basic <- function (.branchId, .levelId) {
    
    request <-  "Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel?"
    inputs  <-  paste("&branchId=",.branchId,"&levelId=",.levelId,sep="")
    output  <-  pvsRequest4(request,inputs)
    output
    
  }
  
  
  # Main function  
  
  output.list <- lapply(branchId, FUN= function (y) {
    lapply(levelId, FUN= function (s) {
      Office.getOfficesByBranchLevel.basic(.branchId=y, .levelId=s)
    }
           )
  }
                        )
  
  output.list <- redlist(output.list)
  
  
  output <- dfList(output.list)
  
  
  output
  
  
  
}