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statcan_chat() gains a provider
argument so you can choose which language-model provider to connect to.
Two providers ship built in: "openai" (the default,
unchanged behaviour) and "anthropic" (Claude). The
"openai" provider also covers any OpenAI-compatible server
– Groq, Together, OpenRouter, Mistral, vLLM, or a local open-source
model served by Ollama or LM Studio – by pointing endpoint
at it.
The endpoint now defaults to the chosen provider, so you no longer have to set it for OpenAI or Anthropic; only an API key and model are required.
The API key is now also read from the provider’s native
environment variable (OPENAI_API_KEY or
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY), in addition to the
STATCANR_LLM_API_KEY variable and the api_key
argument. As before, the key is never read from options().
For Anthropic the key is sent as an x-api-key header; for
OpenAI it is sent as Authorization: Bearer.
New statcan_chat_continue() turns
statcan_chat() into a multi-turn conversation: send a
follow-up message (for example, an answer to the
clarifying_question) and get an updated result. Follow-ups
stay scoped to the candidate tables the first call already found – they
never re-run statcan_find(), and the model still never
proposes a table number of its own. Results are chainable, so you can
keep answering. The API key is re-resolved on each call rather than
stored in the result object.
statcan_data() and statcan_download_data()
now return stable column types. A column that Statistics Canada leaves
blank for a whole table (often DGUID, STATUS,
SYMBOL, or TERMINATED) was previously read as
a logical, all-NA column, so its type changed from table to
table and could break
rbind()/dplyr::bind_rows() or code expecting
text. Such columns are now returned as empty character columns. Columns
that carry real values, including reliability flags such as
"E", "F", or "t", are
unchanged.statcan_chat() now refuses to send your API key over
an unencrypted connection. The endpoint must use https://,
except for loopback hosts (for example, http://localhost
for a local model), so a mistyped http:// endpoint can no
longer leak the key in cleartext.
Breaking: the API key is no longer read from
options(statcanR.llm_api_key = ). A secret placed in
options() can be dumped with options(), saved
with a session, or recorded in .Rhistory, so the key is now
taken only from the STATCANR_LLM_API_KEY environment
variable or the api_key argument. If you previously
configured the option, switch to
Sys.setenv(STATCANR_LLM_API_KEY = "...") (or pass
api_key =); a stale option is ignored with a warning. The
endpoint and model settings are unchanged and
may still be set through options().
statcan_data() and statcan_download_data()
again work for tables whose _MetaData.csv file contains
several sections with differing column counts (for example, table
13-10-0837-01). The metadata reader now parses only the first section
(the header and cube row), so data.table::fread() no longer
stops early and reports the table as an empty data or metadata file
(#8).statcan_find() ranking is faster: the per-title term
matching hoists its long-token filter out of the inner loop and
vectorizes the prefix test, so it no longer scales with titles times
query terms. Combined with the token cache from 0.3.6, a warm search
dropped from roughly 2.4s to about 0.15s on the current catalogue.statcan_find() no longer re-tokenizes the entire table
catalogue on every call. The per-title tokens are computed once and
reused, both within a session and across sessions via a new cache file
(statcan_catalogue_tokens.rds) stored alongside the cached
catalogue. Repeat searches are roughly four times faster (about 2.4s to
0.6s on the current catalogue). The token cache is keyed on both the
catalogue titles and the package version, so it is rebuilt automatically
whenever the catalogue refreshes or the package is updated.statcan_chat(). A new README subsection and expanded
statcan_chat() examples explain that the result carries the
full ranked statcan_find() data frame in
$candidates, and show how to feed
result$candidates$id[1] straight into
statcan_data() without retyping a table number.statcan_chat() now resolves its LLM endpoint, API key,
and model before calling statcan_find(), so a missing
configuration fails immediately instead of after a full catalogue
lookup.statcan_chat() in the README: added it to
the function overview table and a short “Optional: ask a language model
for help” section, mirroring the vignette’s coverage.statcan_chat(), an optional layer over
statcan_find() that sends the query and its ranked
candidates to a user-configured, OpenAI-compatible chat-completions
endpoint. The model explains the best match and asks a clarifying
question when the query is ambiguous, but it can never invent a table
number or reason over downloaded data — those always come from
statcan_find() itself.statcan_chat() is called directly. Configure
the endpoint, API key, and model via function arguments,
options(statcanR.llm_endpoint = , statcanR.llm_api_key = , statcanR.llm_model = ),
or
Sys.setenv(STATCANR_LLM_ENDPOINT = , STATCANR_LLM_API_KEY = , STATCANR_LLM_MODEL = ).statcan_data() and
statcan_download_data() failing on real Statistics Canada
tables with
"Statistics Canada returned an empty data or metadata file".
The metadata CSV’s trailing comma and multi-section structure confused
column detection; parsing is now tolerant of the extra field.statcan_find() and
statcan_search() now display HTML/XML characters normally
(for example, R&D instead of
R&D).statcan_find() recognizes Canada’s major Census
Metropolitan Areas (for example, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) as
geography constraints, in addition to provinces and territories.statcan_find() expands common acronyms
(GDP, CPI, PPI/IPPI,
and the French PIB, IPC) to their spelled-out
form so queries such as "GDP by industry" match tables
whose titles spell the term out in full.statcan_search(),
statcan_data(), and statcan_download_data()
remain supported.statcan_data() and statcan_download_data()
now accept either a hyphenated table number such as
"27-10-0014-01" or an eight-digit Product ID such as
"27100014".statcan_download_data() gains an optional
path argument. Its original two-argument form continues to
save a CSV file in the working directory.getFullTableDownloadCSV Web Data Service method.statcan_download_data() returning before its CSV
file was written.REF_DATE.COORDINATE remains a character column.statcan_find(), which interprets an English or
French description of a subject, Canadian geography, and date range and
returns ranked table candidates with an explanation of each match.statcan_search() retrieves the official table catalogue
from Statistics Canada’s Web Data Service instead of shipping a static
data file.tests/testthat structure
and expanded unit coverage for Product IDs, dates, languages, catalogue
responses, and search.R CMD check and automatic pkgdown deployment.statcan_search() to identify tables available
from Statistics Canada.readr::read_csv() for metadata tables.sqs
wording.These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
Health stats visible at Monitor.