tw_get_single: Return (most) information from a Wikidata item in a tidy...

In tidywikidatar: Explore 'Wikidata' Through Tidy Data Frames

Return (most) information from a Wikidata item in a tidy format from a single Wikidata identifier

Description

Return (most) information from a Wikidata item in a tidy format from a single Wikidata identifier

Usage

tw_get_single(
  id,
  language = tidywikidatar::tw_get_language(),
  cache = NULL,
  overwrite_cache = FALSE,
  read_cache = TRUE,
  cache_connection = NULL,
  disconnect_db = TRUE,
  wait = 0,
  id_l = NULL,
  user_agent = tidywikidatar::tw_get_user_agent()
)

Arguments

id	A character vector, must start with Q, e.g. "Q180099" for the anthropologist Margaret Mead. Can also be a data frame of one row, typically generated with tw_search() or a combination of tw_search() and tw_filter_first().
language	Defaults to language set with tw_set_language(); if not set, "en". Use "all_available" to keep all languages. For available language values, see the dedicated Wikimedia page.
cache	Defaults to NULL. If given, it should be given either TRUE or FALSE. Typically set with tw_enable_cache() or tw_disable_cache().
overwrite_cache	Logical, defaults to FALSE. If TRUE, it overwrites the table in the local sqlite database. Useful if the original Wikidata object has been updated.
read_cache	Logical, defaults to TRUE. Mostly used internally to prevent checking if an item is in cache if it is already known that it is not in cache.
cache_connection	Defaults to NULL. If NULL, and caching is enabled, tidywikidatar will use a local sqlite database. A custom connection to other databases can be given (see vignette caching for details).
disconnect_db	Defaults to TRUE. If FALSE, leaves the connection to cache open.
wait	In seconds, defaults to 0. Time to wait between queries to Wikidata. If data are cached locally, wait time is not applied. If you are running many queries systematically you may want to add some waiting time between queries.
id_l	Defaults to NULL. If given, must be an object or list such as the one generated with tw_get_item(). If given, and the requested id is actually present in id_l, then no query to Wikidata servers is made.
user_agent	Defaults to NULL. If not given, implicitly defaults to current package name (tidywikidatar) and version.

Value

A data.frame (a tibble) with four columns (id, property, value, and rank). If item not found or trouble connecting with the server, a data frame with four columns and zero rows is returned, with the warning as an attribute, which can be retrieved with ⁠attr(output, "warning"))⁠

Examples

if (interactive()) {
  tidywikidatar:::tw_get_single(
    id = "Q180099",
    language = "en"
  )
}

## using `tw_test_items` in examples in order to show output without calling
## on Wikidata servers

tidywikidatar:::tw_get_single(
  id = "Q180099",
  language = "en",
  id_l = tw_test_items
)

tidywikidatar documentation built on Feb. 10, 2026, 1:07 a.m.