% Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
% Please edit documentation in R/ctrdata-package.R
\docType{package}
\name{ctrdata}
\alias{ctrdata-package}
\alias{ctrdata}
\title{ctrdata: get started, database connection, function overview}
\description{
A package for aggregating and analysing information on clinical
studies, and for obtaining documents, from public registers
}
\section{1 - Database connection}{

Package \code{ctrdata} retrieves trial information and stores it in a
database collection, which has to be given as a connection object
to parameter \code{con} for several ctrdata functions; this
connection object is created in almost identical ways for
these supported backends:\tabular{ll}{
   \emph{Database} \tab \emph{Connection object} \cr
   MongoDB \tab \code{dbc <- \link[nodbi:src_mongo]{nodbi::src_mongo}(db = "my_db", collection = "my_coll")} \cr
   SQLite \tab \code{dbc <- \link[nodbi:src_sqlite]{nodbi::src_sqlite}(dbname = "my_db", collection = "my_coll")} \cr
   PostgreSQL \tab \code{dbc <- \link[nodbi:src_postgres]{nodbi::src_postgres}(dbname = "my_db"); dbc[["collection"]] <- "my_coll"} \cr
   DuckDB \tab \code{dbc <- \link[nodbi:src_duckdb]{nodbi::src_duckdb}(dbname = "my_db", collection = "my_coll")} \cr
}


Use a connection object with a \code{ctrdata} function, for example
\link{dbQueryHistory}, or other packages, for example
\link[mongolite:mongo]{mongolite::mongo} or \link[nodbi:docdb_query]{nodbi::docdb_query}.
Use a demo database:
\code{dbc <- nodbi::src_sqlite(dbname = system.file("extdata", "demo.sqlite", package = "ctrdata"), collection = "my_trials")}
}

\section{2 - Operate on a clinical trial register}{


\link{ctrOpenSearchPagesInBrowser},
\link{ctrLoadQueryIntoDb} (load trial records into database collection);
see
\link{ctrdata-registers} for details on registers and how to search.
}

\section{3 - Get a data frame from the database collection}{


\link{dbFindFields} (find names of fields of interest in trial records in a collection),
\link{dbGetFieldsIntoDf} (create a data frame with fields of interest from collection),
\link{dbFindIdsUniqueTrials} (get de-duplicated identifiers of
clinical trials' records that can be used to subset a data frame).
}

\section{4 - Operate on a data frame with trial information}{


\link{dfTrials2Long} (convert fields with nested elements into long format),
\link{dfName2Value} (get values for variable(s) of interest).
}

\seealso{
Useful links:
\itemize{
  \item \url{https://cran.r-project.org/package=ctrdata}
  \item Report bugs at \url{https://github.com/rfhb/ctrdata/issues}
}

}
\author{
Ralf Herold \email{ralf.herold@mailbox.org}
}
\keyword{package}
