README.md

In helen-food/fhrsdata: Returns Data from the FHRS API

fhrsdata

Why make an R package for FHRS data?

The FHRS is currently published as open data, in the form of individual XML files for each local authority, or available through our API. Neither of those are a totally straightforward way to get the data you want.

Enter fhrsdata. This package wraps useful API calls in R functions, which can be customised via the functions' parameters, to provide data extracts for a range of scenarios.

Installing the package

#install devtools if necessary
#install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("helen-food/fhrsdata")

Fetching establishments

The function get_establishments() calls upon the API to return a tibble of establishments from the FHRS. Calling this function with no arguments would return every establishment in the FHRS - OK if this is really what you want, but it will take a long time.

Alternatively, you can customise your API call with the optional arguments.

The name argument takes a string and searches for business names that contain that string. For example:

get_establishments(name = "pret a manger")

The type argument allows you to restrict your search to a particular business type. The list of businesses in the FHRS can be returned using the get_business_types() function. This will also return the corresponding code for each business type. For example, the code for business type 'Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen' is 1, so to search for, say, all restaurants with the word 'amore' in their name, you would use:

get_establishments(name = "amore", type = 1)

The la argument to get_establishments() allows you to restrict your search to a particular local authority. To get the list of authorities in the FHRS, use the get_authorities() function. Again it is the authority ID number not the name that is required. Say you wanted to return all restaurants in Aberdeen. You can find the code for Aberdeen using:

get_authorities() %>% 
  filter(grepl("Aberdeen", Name))

This would reveal the relevant ID number to be 197. The establishments call would then be made as follows:

get_establishments(type = 1, la = 197)

By default, the table returns a selection of (arguably the most useful) variables. If you'd rather have the whole lot, this can be specified by setting the condensed argument to FALSE.

get_establishments(type = 1, la = 197, condensed = FALSE)

Work in progress

This package is heavily under construction and is liable to break. Further functions will be added to the package.

To make suggestions for future functions, or bug reports, please submit an issue. Other feedback welcome to [e-mail].

helen-food/fhrsdata documentation built on Aug. 21, 2019, 12:22 p.m.