Accept multiple IDs in betydb_*(id=...)?

[infotroph]

The id argument to all BETY functions is currently documented as (emphasis added) "One or more ids for a species, site, variable, etc." But at present no function handles multiple IDs gracefully.

betydb_specie(id=c(937, 222))
# Error: length(url) == 1 is not TRUE
# In addition: Warning message:
# In if (!grepl("/api/", url, fixed = TRUE)) { :
#  the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will be used

betydb_query(id=c(937, 222), genus="Miscanthus", table="species")
# Error in vapply(elements, encode, character(1)) : 
#  values must be length 1,
#  but FUN(X[[2]]) result is length 2

• In the "plural" functions (eg betydb_query), it could make sense to interpret it as an OR operation so that betydb_query(id=c(1, 937, 222), ...) := betydb_query(id="~^(1|937|222)$", ...), but maybe that's too magic and the user should construct the regex themselves if they want it. Also not compatible with v0 API.

• In the "singular" functions (eg betydb_specie) it only makes sense to send one ID per request, so I see two ~reasonable behaviors:

  • Continue to only support single IDs
  • Fetch all IDs and return them as a list of records: betydb_specie(c(1, 2, 3), ...) := lapply(c(1, 2, 3), FUN=betydb_item, table="species", ...)

Thoughts, @dlebauer?

[sckott]

I guess it's up to you @infotroph and @dlebauer - but agreed that this should be clarified

[sckott]

@infotroph @dlebauer Is this something that should be dealt with soon, like before the next CRAN push? or hold off for a while (that is, should I put it in the milestone for the next CRAN push, or on a later milestone?)

[dlebauer]

Hold off, this is lower priority On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 4:00 PM Scott Chamberlain notifications@github.com wrote:

@infotroph https://github.com/infotroph @dlebauer https://github.com/dlebauer Is this something that should be dealt with soon, like before the next CRAN push? or hold off for a while (that is, should I put it in the milestone for the next CRAN push, or on a later milestone?)

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[maelle]

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