A few thoughts on the implementation

[DavisVaughan]

I would love to see this package on CRAN. I was just about to write an interface to FRED that does more than what we do in tidyquant (like accessing all the params of the API) when I discovered this. I think it has great potential!

If you don't mind, I'd like to suggest a few features that I personally would like. I'm hardcore biased towards tidyverse, so take it with a grain of salt.

• Allow fredr_series to return multiple series in 1 call. Under the hood it could call map() to make multiple calls to the API, but it would be nice as a user facing feature to let us input a vector of series ids.

• With regards to the above, it would then make sense to change from returning xts to returning a tibble. This could have a column, id that contained the series_id and you could stack series together into 1 tidy data frame. It would be up to the user to ensure that each series allowed for the specified frequency and other params, or those could be vectorized as well.

• I'm not sure the fredr_key() function is working perfectly. I was not in an RStudio project, and tried to set it for the first time with fredr_key("my_key") and it errored out because I already had an .Renviron file. In riingo I let the user set the key temporarily with riingo_set_token() which sets an option() or they can set it permanently themselves by modifying their .Renviron file. This way I'm not directly messing with their .Renvion file.

• The FRED API has a lot of useful endpoints. Would it make sense to expose all of them through something like fredr_series(), fredr_series_observations(), fredr_series_release(), ... and so on for series and for tags and everything else? It would work well with tab completion.

• Lastly, I think the FRED API is relatively stable in terms of parameters that get passed through. To be easier on the user, maybe you could provide things such as series_id, observation_start, and all the other api params as function params for each of the above suggested endpoints. With roxygen2 and @inheritParams, it would really only be a matter of documenting them once, and sharing them across all functions that used them, so probably not too much work. This would be nice as it could keep the user from having to even go to the API docs for more info.

[sboysel]

@DavisVaughan: Thanks for using the package and for the thoughts!

• CRAN: Yes, I had planned on submitting the package so I was taking the necessary steps to do so (CI, clear documentation, improving unit tests, etc.). I shelved the task due to lack of time but after working through some of these suggestions, I will revisit.
• (Vectorizing fredr_series #16) Vectorizing fredr_series: I think this is a good idea. As of now, you could do something like

multiple_series_ids <- c("GNPCA", "GNP", "FEDFUNDS")
names(multiple_series_ids) <- multiple_series_ids
purrr::map_dfr(
  .x = multiple_series_ids,
  .f = function(x) fredr_series(series_id = x) %>%
    dplyr::rename(value = x),
  .id = "series_id"
)

I will prioritize as an enhancement.

• (fredr_key throws error if Renviron exists #15) Setting the API key: Yes, I'd like to abandon my attempt to over-automate setting the key. In more recent projects I've followed a similar approach to yours. I will modify this before an initial CRAN release. Fixed with fredr_set_key simply sets environment variable #17
• Convenience functions for additional endpoints: I started doing this with fredr_search and I agree that it might be most useful for the the series functions. Another enhancement. Progress on this point tracked in issues Implement functions for endpoint: Series #21, Implement functions for endpoint: Categories #22, Implement functions for endpoint: Releases #23, Implement functions for endpoint: Sources #24, and Implement functions for endpoint: Tags #25.
• Parameter documentation: Yes I think this is another key improvement for usability. My guess is that very few people even use the fredr_docs function so I was hoping to scrap it at some point. I'll add this as an enhancement but will try to tackle it first. Discussion in Add all relevant API parameters as function params for user interface improvements #20.

[DavisVaughan]

I can help too over the next week or so if you'd accept the PR!

[sboysel]

Absolutely. Thanks!

[DavisVaughan]

I think things are looking pretty good. Want me to take one more look at the new vignettes? Anything else?

Update) I've added all my edits. Things are looking great!

[sboysel]

On CRAN submission: running into git2r authentication issue when running devtools::release()

Running Git checks for fredr
Checking uncommitted files... OK
Checking if synched with remote branch...
ERROR: Error in 'git2r_remote_fetch': error authenticating: 

I think it's related to recent changes in git2r. I can try downgrading my git2r so I can still use devtools::release().

I'll have to come back to this a bit later.

[sboysel]

I reran the git checks manually and submitted the package to CRAN. Will update on feedback.

A huge thanks for all the help, @DavisVaughan!

[DavisVaughan]

Happy to hear it and happy to help! Keep me updated and I'll promote on Twitter!