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List SDG Indicators

Source: R/sdg.R
sdg_indicators.Rd

Fetches the list of SDG indicators from the UN SDG API, with optional keyword filtering on the indicator description.

Usage 

sdg_indicators(search = NULL)

Arguments

Optional character. Search keywords matched against the description column (case-insensitive). All terms must match (AND semantics). Accepts either:

  • a single string, which is split on whitespace into terms (e.g. "mortality cancer" keeps rows whose description contains both "mortality" and "cancer"), or

  • a character vector, whose elements are used as terms verbatim (so a term may itself contain whitespace, e.g. c("mortality rate", "attributed")).

The filter is applied client-side using grepl() with fixed = TRUE because the UN SDG /Indicator/List endpoint is not OData and exposes no server-side search parameter; the full list is small (~250 rows) so this is cheap.

Value

A list (or tibble) of SDG indicators, or NULL when the service is unreachable. When search matches no rows, an empty tibble with the same columns as the unfiltered response is returned.

Retrieval metadata

Downloads and directories retain their existing classes and columns. dsir_metadata(x)$sources records the actual backend, endpoint, UTC retrieved_at, retrieval status, cache use, source record count, reported API version and release. Unknown versions and times remain NA. Each source row includes its own server query. query records the public selection, including local filters and reference-country/year restrictions. result describes the function's original return; current is computed from the supplied object. Source counts precede local filtering and GHE measure pivoting, so they can differ from returned row counts.

Result status distinguishes success, empty, failed, incomplete, invalid, partial and unverified. Completeness concerns the requested retrieval, not global indicator coverage. It is NA when the response lacks sufficient completeness information. A successful HTTP response alone does not establish completeness of an observation download.

Cached records retain their original retrieval time and set cache_hit. A historical fallback uses retrieval_status = "bundled_snapshot" and retains the original collection date. It does not prove live availability. Failed SDG list requests still return NULL with a warning; NULL cannot carry metadata. Other empty failure results record no successful retrieval time. Existing WHO who_provenance and catalog_snapshot attributes remain available for compatibility.

Cleaners preserve acquisition metadata even for empty input. This is independent of keep_metadata, which controls optional data columns. as_dsir_data() also retains sources, query and result. These are historical acquisition records, not an audit of arbitrary changes to a plain tibble. Use the S3 object's processing status to track supported transformations. saveRDS() preserves attributes; CSV does not.

Cleaning records live in cleaning, also for output = "tibble" and user-supplied input without acquisition records. They contain the cleaner, package version, UTC cleaning time, input/output sizes and columns, options, and a profile of semantic fields. Each profile records its retained column (or NA), distinct count including missing values, missing count and its constant value, if any. Varying omitted values are not stored row by row. Recorded aliases link equivalent core and named dimensions. Cleaning time never substitutes for retrieval time. These records describe the cleaning input; current coverage and subsequent field status remain separate.

See also

sdg_targets(), sdg_data().

Examples 

# \donttest{
# Full list
sdg_indicators()

# Single keyword
sdg_indicators("mortality")

# Multi-keyword — AND semantics
sdg_indicators("mortality cancer")
sdg_indicators(c("maternal", "mortality"))
# }