Given a list of data package references from DataStore the function will download the indicated data packages (using creating the folders /data/reference for each data package; see `get_data_packages` for details), load them into R, and then collect some summary statistics on the data packages.
Arguments
- ref_list
list or string of data package reference IDs from DataStore (potentially generated via `get_references_list`.
- secure
logical. Defaults to TRUE to access secure DataStore server and restricted data packages. Set to FALSE to to access only public references.
- check_metadata
Logical. Defaults to FALSE. In this case, metadata will not be checked or loaded. Any load errors will occur due to problems with .csv files (for instance if they don't exist). To test whether the metadata meets minimal requirements (is schema-valid), set check_metadata = TRUE.
Details
If a data package fails to download (or load) into R, the function will return NAs instead of summary data about the data package as well as a message about the package status ("Loads", "Error") in the dataframe that the function returns. The function will ignore files that fall outside the data package specifications (one or more .csv files and a single .xml file ending in *_metadata.xml).
When `check_metadata` is set to the default `FALSE`, the function will attempt to and load any .csv, regardless of the contents. Data packages with restricted access can produce false positives if you do not have the appropriate permissions to download the data as the function will still download the files, but they will be populated with unhelpful hmtl rather than the intended data. In this case, each .csv will be listed as having 5 columns and one row of data. Functions that completely fail to load into R likely violate the data package specifications in some fundamental way (e.g. .CSV file instead of .csv or no .csv files at all).
When `check_metadata` is set to `TRUE`, additional checks and tests are run on the data package and load errors may occur for all of the above reasons and also if there are multiple .xml files, if the metadata file name does not end in "*_metadata.xml", if there is no metadata file, or if the metadata file is EML schema-invalid.
If you have access to restricted DataStore references (e.g. in an NPS office or logged in to an NPS VPN), you can set secure = TRUE. This will give you access to restricted (internal to NPS) references but if a reference is restricted to a named list of individuals you must be on that named list to access the reference.
Examples
if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
x <- get_ref_list()
get_ref_info(x[[1]])
} # }