R/Votes.getBillActionVotes.R

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

##' Get votes listed by candidate on a certain bill action
##' 
##' This function is a wrapper for the Votes.getBillActionVotes() method of the PVS API Votes class which provides votes listed by candidate on a certain bill action. The function sends a request with this method to the PVS API for all action 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 Votes.getBillActionVotes(actionId)
##' @param actionId a character string or list of character strings with the action ID(s) (see references for details)
##' @return A data frame with a row for each vote and columns with the following variables describing the vote:\cr votes.vote*.candidateId,\cr votes.vote*.candidateName,\cr votes.vote*.officeParties,\cr votes.vote*.action.
##' @references http://api.votesmart.org/docs/Votes.html\cr
##' Use Votes.getBill() or Votes.getByOfficial() to get a list of action IDs.
##' @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 votes of a certain candidate on a certain action
##' \dontrun{actionvote <- Votes.getBillActionVotes(list(31712,28686))}
##' \dontrun{actionvote}
##' @export



Votes.getBillActionVotes <-
	
	function (actionId) {
		# internal function
		Votes.getBillActionVotes.basic <- 
			function (.actionId) {

				request <-  "Votes.getBillActionVotes?"
				inputs  <-  paste("&actionId=",.actionId, sep="")
				output  <-  pvsRequest(request,inputs)
				output$actionId  <- .actionId  
				
				return(output)
				}

		# Main function  
		output.list <- lapply(actionId, FUN= function (b) {
			Votes.getBillActionVotes.basic(.actionId=b)
			}
		)

		output.list <- redlist(output.list)
		output <- bind_rows(output.list)
		
		return(output)
		}