question: how to programmatically get a list of supported databases?

[atn38]

Hullo,

My apologies if it's obvious, I didn't find a solution from quickly scanning the docs. My use case: programmatically check a list of providers against what taxadb supports so the downstream code can proceed appropriately.

[cboettig]

Sorry, it's a good question; databases are a moving target and so the static docs haven't really kept up.

Currently the best thing is to consult the internal 'provenance' table, e.g. via:

prov <- taxadb:::parse_prov()
prov

That gives a data.frame of all the database tables taxadb knows about, by version. It's perhaps not super clean but should at least be good for programmatic use.

[atn38]

Thanks @cboettig. Looks like the quick and easy way to proceed for my case is to hardcode in the list.

[cboettig]

I still suggest you use the prov table, as you can see it is a moving target and you are better off being precise about which year of the database you are interested in, and if you intend to fall back on to earlier years if/when a given provider is not available. but of course it is up to you.

[atn38]

Ok, I'll look into it. to be quite honest, my operations are not sophisticated enough to discern between different years of a given database, so that aspect wasn't even on my radar.

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On Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 2:09 PM Carl Boettiger ***@***.***> wrote: I still suggest you use the prov table, as you can see it is a moving target and you are better off being precise about which year of the database you are interested in, and if you intend to fall back on to earlier years if/when a given provider is not available. but of course it is up to you. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#103 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AKAZD5XJFYQZBNDILW3NFGTVBS4VRANCNFSM5RR32VIQ> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>