Aggregate data from the Vancouver Open Data Portal

Description

Sends a server-side aggregation query to the CoV Open Data API and returns the result as a tibble. Because aggregation is performed by the API, this is suitable for summarising large datasets without downloading all records.

Results are cached for the duration of the R session.

Usage

aggregate_cov_data(
  dataset_id,
  select = "count(*) as count",
  group_by = NULL,
  where = NULL,
  apikey = getOption("VancouverOpenDataApiKey"),
  refresh = FALSE
)

Arguments

Value

A tibble with one row per group, with columns named according to the 'select' expression.

See Also

[get_cov_data()] to download full or filtered records, [search_cov_datasets()] to find dataset IDs

Examples

## Not run: 
# Count of each ticket status for fire hydrant infractions
aggregate_cov_data("parking-tickets-2017-2019",
                   group_by = "status",
                   where = "infractiontext LIKE 'FIRE'")

# Sum land and building values by tax year (server-side, no full download needed)
aggregate_cov_data("property-tax-report",
                   select = "sum(current_land_value) as Land,
                             sum(current_improvement_value) as Building",
                   group_by = "tax_assessment_year")

## End(Not run)

Download a dataset from the Vancouver Open Data Portal

Description

Downloads a dataset and returns it as a tibble or 'sf' object. When 'cast_types = TRUE' (the default), field types are looked up via [get_cov_metadata()] and columns are automatically cast to integer, numeric, or Date. Datasets containing a 'geo_shape' field are returned as an 'sf' object; if spatial conversion fails a plain tibble is returned with a warning.

Results are cached for the duration of the R session, keyed on all query parameters. Re-running the same call does not trigger a second download.

Usage

get_cov_data(
  dataset_id,
  select = "*",
  where = NULL,
  apikey = getOption("VancouverOpenDataApiKey"),
  rows = NULL,
  cast_types = TRUE,
  refresh = FALSE,
  ...
)

Arguments

Value

A tibble, or an 'sf' object when the dataset has a 'geo_shape' field and 'cast_types = TRUE'.

See Also

[get_cov_metadata()] for field names and types, [aggregate_cov_data()] for server-side aggregation, [search_cov_datasets()] to find dataset IDs

Examples

## Not run: 
# Filtered download: parking tickets on one block
get_cov_data("parking-tickets-2017-2019",
             where = "block = 1100 AND street = 'ALBERNI ST'")

# Select specific columns and limit rows (useful for exploration)
get_cov_data("property-tax-report",
             select = "tax_assessment_year, current_land_value, zoning_district",
             where = "tax_assessment_year = '2024'",
             rows = 100)

# Spatial dataset: returned automatically as an sf object
property_polygons <- get_cov_data("property-parcel-polygons")
class(property_polygons)  # "sf" "data.frame"

## End(Not run)

Get field-level metadata for a CoV open data dataset

Description

Returns a tibble describing each field in the dataset, including its API name, data type, display label, and description. Results are cached for the duration of the R session.

This function is called internally by [get_cov_data()] when 'cast_types = TRUE' to determine column types and identify spatial fields.

Usage

get_cov_metadata(
  dataset_id,
  apikey = getOption("VancouverOpenDataApiKey"),
  refresh = FALSE
)

Arguments

Value

A tibble with one row per field and columns:

name

Field name as used in 'where' and 'select' queries

type

API data type (e.g. '"text"', '"int"', '"double"', '"date"', '"geo_shape"')

label

Human-readable display label

description

Field description, if provided by the portal

See Also

[get_cov_data()], [list_cov_datasets()]

Examples

## Not run: 
# View all fields in the street trees dataset
get_cov_metadata("street-trees")

# Find which fields are spatial
get_cov_metadata("property-parcel-polygons") |>
  dplyr::filter(type == "geo_shape")

## End(Not run)

List all datasets in the CoV open data catalogue

Description

Fetches the full City of Vancouver Open Data catalogue and returns it as a tibble. Results are cached for the duration of the R session; subsequent calls return the cached copy unless 'refresh = TRUE'.

Usage

list_cov_datasets(
  trim = TRUE,
  apikey = getOption("VancouverOpenDataApiKey"),
  refresh = FALSE
)

Arguments

Value

A tibble with one row per dataset. The first four columns are always 'dataset_id', 'title', 'keyword', and 'search-term'; remaining columns contain catalogue metadata (trimmed to non-empty columns when 'trim = TRUE').

See Also

[search_cov_datasets()] to filter the catalogue by a search term, [get_cov_data()] to download a specific dataset

Examples

## Not run: 
list_cov_datasets()

## End(Not run)

Search the CoV open data catalogue

Description

Filters the City of Vancouver Open Data catalogue for datasets whose title, dataset ID, keyword, or search-term fields match 'search_term' (using 'grepl()', so regular expressions are supported). When no exact match is found, a fuzzy-match hint list of similarly named datasets is printed.

Usage

search_cov_datasets(
  search_term,
  trim = TRUE,
  apikey = getOption("VancouverOpenDataApiKey"),
  refresh = FALSE
)

Arguments

Value

A tibble with one row per matching dataset, in the same format as [list_cov_datasets()].

See Also

[list_cov_datasets()] to retrieve the full catalogue, [get_cov_data()] to download a specific dataset

Examples

## Not run: 
# Search using a plain string
search_cov_datasets("trees")

# Search using a regular expression
search_cov_datasets("parking.*(2019|2020)")

## End(Not run)