R/factbook-package.R

In mskyttner/factbook: World Factbook Example Data using RSQLite and FTS

#' World Factbook SQLite Database in R
#'
#' This package provides data access to some curated data from the World Factbook
#' provided in the SQLite database format.
#'
#' A local SQLite db is created based a distribution of some World Factbook data from
#' \url{https://github.com/factbook/factbook.sql/releases/download/v0.1/factbook.db}
#'
#' It is created by extending the remotely distributed database to support
#' Full Text Search and this extended database is then exposed in through this
#' package through a couple of functions by way of tibbles.
#'
#' The idea is to show how to provide access to a potentially larger database
#' and how to enable use of in-built full text search capabilities in SQLite
#' by downloading potentially big remote data and installing it locally
#' using \url{https://rdrr.io/cran/rappdirs/}
#'
#' This can be relevant if you are considering to release a package to CRAN that
#' provides access to datasets to R and you also want to follow the general
#' recommendation from the CRAN checks that
#' "package data should be smaller than a megabyte"
#' thus avoiding having to argue separately with the CRAN gods for making an
#' exception to this rule (see details at: \url{http://r-pkgs.had.co.nz/data.html#data-cran}).
#'
#' With this approach, your package can stay small. There are a few minor practical
#' drawbacks - mostly that your package will initially not work off-line until at least one
#' initial successfull call to download the data has been made
#' using \code{\link{factbook_download}} which would require a connection
#' to the Internet.
#'
#' The upside is being able to tap into things like Full Text Search for datasets
#' and with this approach the package can stay small and pass the CRAN checks
#' without requiring exceptions, while the dataset size is only limited
#' to 2TB (an SQLite limitation).
#'
#' @import dplyr RSQLite
#' @aliases factbook
#' @name factbook-package
#' @keywords package
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