R/Rating.getSig.R

In umatter/pvsR: Interact with the Project Vote Smart API for Scientific Research

##' Get detailed information about a special interest group
##' 
##' This function is a wrapper for the Rating.getSig() method of the PVS API Rating class which dumps detailed information about special interest groups (SIGs). The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all SIG 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 Rating.getSig(sigId)
##' @param sigId a character string or list of character strings with the special interest group's ID(s) (see references for details)
##' @return A data frame with a row for each special interest group and columns with the following variables describing the special interest group:\cr sig.sigId,\cr sig.parentId,\cr sig.stateId,\cr sig.name,\cr sig.description,\cr sig.address,\cr sig.city,\cr sig.state,\cr sig.zip,\cr sig.phone1,\cr sig.phone2,\cr sig.fax,\cr sig.email,\cr sig.url,\cr sig.contactName.
##' @references http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Rating.html\cr
##' Use Rating.getSigList() to get a list of special interest group's IDs.\cr
##' See also: Matter U, Stutzer A (2015) pvsR: An Open Source Interface to Big Data on the American Political Sphere. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0130501. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130501
##' @author Ulrich Matter <ulrich.matter-at-unibas.ch>
##' @examples
##' # First, make sure your personal PVS API key is saved as an option
##' # (options("pvs.key" = "yourkey")) or in the pvs.key variable:
##' \dontrun{pvs.key <- "yourkey"}
##' # get information about certain special interest groups
##' \dontrun{info <- Rating.getSig(list(1016,1120))}
##' \dontrun{info}

##' @export


Rating.getSig <-
	function (sigId) {

		# internal function
		Rating.getSig.basic <- 
			function (.sigId) {
				
				request <-  "Rating.getSig?"
				inputs  <-  paste("&sigId=",.sigId,sep="")
				output  <-  pvsRequest4.1(request,inputs)
				output$sigId <- .sigId
				
				return(output)
			}
		
		# Main function  
		output.list <- lapply(sigId, FUN= function (s) {
			Rating.getSig.basic(.sigId=s)
		}
		)
		
		output.list <- redlist(output.list)
		output <- bind_rows(output.list)
		
		return(output)
	}