New feature: downloadRates() - a function to download and convert rate files from HMD, HFD, UN #28
Description
I started to work on a new function: I pre-compute rate files in socsim format from input data that I download from the UN World Population Prospects . In the future, I would like to add data from HMD and HFD, of course.
I think this would be a good API:
retrieveRates(folder, countrycode, yearStart, yearEnd, source, supfile)
folder - directory where the rates should be saved (maybe save them to a new subdirectory?)
countrycode -iso2code
yearStart - 1950 by default
yearEnd - 2100 by default
source - "UN" or "HFDHMD" or "combined" .... what do you think?
supfile - name of a supfile that uses the rates. None if you don't want to create one. By default: countrycode_yearStart_yearEnd_source.sup
How does it work?
I looked into whether this function could download the data directly from the databases (HMD, UN...), but that would be complicated for this reason:
- Access is restricted:
- The UN has an API, but limited by API-keys. I requested one and havn't heard back in a few days.
- HFD has no API? You need a login and manually download the data.
- HMD - same as HFD
On the other hand, all 3 organizations distribute the data with a Creative Commons license. We can download, modify and share the data, as long as we do appropriate attribution. I will mention the attribution in a print statement and in the rate files as comments.
I use Python to precompute rate files for all years and countries.
I will put them on a webserver.
retrieveRates() will download the correct rate files and save them to the correct place. It will also create a sup file that does a simulation. Users can use that sup file or not. Or they can copy some parts of it.
What do you think?
I will update this issue in the next few days.