nhanesSearchTableNames function

Search for matching table names

Returns a list of table names that match a specified pattern.

nhanesSearchTableNames(
  pattern = NULL,
  ystart = NULL,
  ystop = NULL,
  includerdc = FALSE,
  includewithdrawn = FALSE,
  nchar = 128,
  details = FALSE
)

Arguments

• pattern: Pattern of table names to match
• ystart: Four digit year of first survey included in search, where ystart >= 1999.
• ystop: Four digit year of final survey included in search, where ystop >= ystart.
• includerdc: If TRUE then RDC only tables are included (default=FALSE).
• includewithdrawn: IF TRUE then withdrawn tables are included (default=FALSE).
• nchar: Truncates the variable description to a max length of nchar.
• details: If TRUE then complete table information from the comprehensive data list is returned (default=FALSE).

Returns

Returns a character vector of table names that match the given pattern. If details=TRUE, then a data frame of table attributes is returned. NULL is returned when an HTML read error is encountered.

Details

Searches the Doc File field in the NHANES Comprehensive Data List (see https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/search/DataPage.aspx) for tables that match a given name pattern. Only a single pattern may be entered.

Examples

bmx = nhanesSearchTableNames('BMX')
length(bmx)
hepbd = nhanesSearchTableNames('HEPBD')
length(hepbd)
hpvs = nhanesSearchTableNames('HPVS', includerdc=TRUE, details=TRUE)
dim(hpvs)