Search the catalog

Ranked dataset search from plain words, in English or Spanish ("jobless rate", "kids missing school", "desempleo"). Use it when you know what you are looking for but not what the dataset is called.

Search is hybrid: keyword matching plus matching by meaning. The query text is sent to the Georgia Civic Data API, which embeds it with Voyage AI for the meaning half and never logs it. This is the one function whose results can't be reproduced by filtering gcd_datasets() locally, and the ranking can change between releases of the platform.

Usage

gcd_search(query, main_topic = NULL, level = NULL, year = NULL, n = 20)

Arguments

query

Plain words, a single string.

main_topic, level, year

The same filters as gcd_datasets(): a subject area, a detail level and a year. Default NULL: no filter.

n

The number of matches to return, 1 to 100. Default 20.

Value

A tibble, one row per match, best first, with columns:

• rank: integer, 1 is the best match.

• name, title, summary, main_topic: the dataset.

• detail_levels: list-column of the levels it publishes.

• year_min, year_max: integer, the years covered.

• score: double, the match score.

• matched_on: list-column of what matched (aliases, columns, summary, ...).

• matched_columns: list-column of the dataset's columns that matched.

Attributes confidence ("high", "medium" or "low"), retrieval (a list: mode and reranked) and total_matches describe the search. On low confidence the function says that nothing in the catalog may fit; it also names any lookup tables that matched.

See also

gcd_datasets() for the full catalog; gcd_describe() and gcd_columns() to understand a match.

Other find data: gcd_datasets()

Examples

if (FALSE) { # interactive()
gcd_search("high school graduation")
gcd_search("desempleo", n = 5)
gcd_search("chronic absence", level = "districts")
}