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Retrieve Documents from a Docket or Agency

get_documents.Rd

Fetches document metadata from regulations.gov. Can retrieve all documents within a specific docket or all documents belonging to an agency. Returns a data frame containing document details based on specified filters.

Usage

get_documents(agencyId = NULL, docketId = NULL, 
              lastModifiedDate = Sys.time(), 
              lastModifiedDate_mod = "le", documentType = NULL, 
              api_keys)

Arguments

agencyId

Optional character string containing the agency acronym. Can be used alone to retrieve all documents from an agency, or in combination with docketId to filter documents within a specific docket. Must match official agency acronyms used on regulations.gov (e.g., "EPA", "FCC", "CMS").

docketId

Optional character string containing the docket ID. When provided alone or with agencyId, returns all documents belonging to the specified docket.

lastModifiedDate

Filter documents by their last modified date. Default is current system time. Format must be: "yyyy-MM-dd%20HH:mm:ss" (e.g., "2024-01-01%2000:00:00" for January 1, 2024).

lastModifiedDate_mod

Modifier for the date filter. Acceptable values:

"le"

Less than or equal to (default)

"ge"

Greater than or equal to

NULL

Collects results for a single exact date match

documentType

Optional filter for document type. Filter by specific document categories (e.g., "Notice", "Rule", "Proposed Rule", "Supporting & Related Material"). See regulations.gov documentation for valid types.

api_keys

Character string or vector containing API key(s) from api.data.gov. If multiple keys are provided, the function will cycle through them to manage rate limits.

References

Regulations.gov API Documentation: https://open.gsa.gov/api/regulationsgov/

Agency Acronym List: https://www.regulations.gov/agencies

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Basic usage - get all documents from a specific docket
docket_docs <- get_documents(docketId = "EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0123", 
                            api_keys = "DEMO_KEY")

# Get all documents from an agency
epa_documents <- get_documents(agencyId = "EPA", api_keys = "DEMO_KEY")

# Filter by date (documents modified since January 1, 2024)
recent_docs <- get_documents(agencyId = "FCC", 
                            lastModifiedDate = "2024-01-01%2000:00:00",
                            lastModifiedDate_mod = "ge")

# Filter by document type within a specific docket
proposed_rules <- get_documents(docketId = "CMS-2024-0012",
                               documentType = "Proposed Rule",
                               lastModifiedDate = "2024-06-01%2000:00:00",
                               lastModifiedDate_mod = "ge")

# Using multiple API keys for higher rate limits
keys <- c("api_key_1", "api_key_2", "api_key_3")
results <- get_documents(agencyId = "EPA", api_keys = keys)
} # }