The help vignette for bulk_postcode_lookup() states that argument postcodes 'Accepts a list of postcodes'. This is untrue - I've just spent 15 minutes working out that it accepts a list of length one, whose sole element is a character vector of postcodes.

## This will work:
bulk_postcode_lookup( list( postcodes = c("PR3 0SG", "M45 6GN", "EX165BL")))

## This will not work:
bulk_postcode_lookup( list("PR3 0SG", "M45 6GN", "EX165BL"))

The documentation (with the exception of the examples) implies the latter is the correct syntax.

I'm not sure why the character vector needs to be wrapped in a list, but I'm treating this as a documentation error rather than a missing feature.

For some postcodes, I think the postcode_lookup() function is failing in (what I think) is an unexpected way.

Take the postcode "IM26BG" as an example. The postcode appears to be valid:

PostcodesioR::postcode_validation("IM26BG")
#> [1] TRUE

However, the postcode_lookup function fails in R:

PostcodesioR::postcode_lookup("IM26BG")
#> Error in (function (..., row.names = NULL, check.rows = FALSE, check.names = TRUE, : arguments imply differing number of rows: 1, 0

Passing the postcode into the 'Lookup a postcode' API endpoint on the official postcodes.io site reveals that this postcode returns null in many of the fields:

{
    "status": 200,
    "result": {
        "postcode": "IM2 6BG",
        "quality": 9,
        "eastings": null,
        "northings": null,
        "country": "Isle of Man",
        "nhs_ha": "Isle of Man",
        "longitude": null,
        "latitude": null,
        "european_electoral_region": null,
        "primary_care_trust": "Isle of Man",
        "region": null,
        "lsoa": null,
        "msoa": null,
        "incode": "6BG",
        "outcode": "IM2",
        "parliamentary_constituency": null,
        "admin_district": null,
        "parish": null,
        "admin_county": null,
        "admin_ward": null,
        "ced": null,
        "ccg": "Isle of Man",
        "nuts": null,
        "codes": {
            "admin_district": "M99999999",
            "admin_county": "M99999999",
            "admin_ward": "M99999999",
            "parish": "M99999999",
            "parliamentary_constituency": "M99999999",
            "ccg": "M01000001",
            "ccg_id": "YK1",
            "ced": "M99999999",
            "nuts": null
        }
    }
}

I believe this explains the R error, as it appears the lookup_postcode() function is failing when it finds null values (creating differing number of rows).

I think the lookup_postcode() function should convert null values to NA or fail with a more informative error message.

Might want to check ropensci/stats19 travis YML to send active pushes to codecov.io. I can see the covr package check locally being 89.51% would do with few more tests if need be.

Not urgent or necessary at all. Close it if you wish.

After following your installation instructions and loading the library, no new functions are loaded.

> devtools::install_github("erzk/PostcodesioR")
> ls(2)
character(0)

For example
postcode_lookup("CB13AB")
returns the error
Error in (function (..., row.names = NULL, check.rows = FALSE, check.names = TRUE, : arguments imply differing number of rows: 1, 0
However http://api.postcodes.io/postcodes/cb13ab returns a valid result

What

When user follows the vignette for bulk_postcode_lookup, Bad Request (HTTP 400) is returned, which is unexpected.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install PostcodesioR
2. Load library(PostcodesioR)
3. Follow steps here:

   PostcodesioR/vignettes/Introduction.Rmd

   Lines 56 to 57 in cdc196e

   	pc_list <- list(postcodes = c("PR3 0SG", "M45 6GN", "EX165BL"))
   	bulk_lookup_result <- bulk_postcode_lookup(pc_list)

4. Run
5. See Warning message: In extract_results(r) : Bad Request (HTTP 400). printed in RStudio console

Other information

postcode_lookup("PR3 0SG"), postcode_lookup("M45 6GN") and postcode_lookup("EX165BL") returns the expected data for each single postcode

This is happening for the postcode F93 HF23.
Obviously this is not a real postcode but when I use postcode_validation() to check if it is valid I get the following warnings message:

Warning message: In extract_results(r) : Bad Request (HTTP 400).

I think it happens with any 'postcode' with 'H' as the first letter of the second section of the postcode. I think it should be returning FALSE instead?

The help file for bulk_postcodes_lookup() says that spaces are ignored. Spaces are ignored for postcode_lookup(), but not for bulk_postcode_lookup().

library(PostcodesioR)

postcode_lookup("S7 1FL")
#>   postcode quality eastings northings country                   nhs_ha
#> 1   S7 1FL       1   434790    385119 England Yorkshire and the Humber
#>   longitude latitude european_electoral_region primary_care_trust
#> 1 -1.478695 53.36182  Yorkshire and The Humber          Sheffield
#>                     region           lsoa          msoa incode outcode
#> 1 Yorkshire and The Humber Sheffield 042D Sheffield 042    1FL      S7
#>   parliamentary_constituency admin_district                     parish
#> 1          Sheffield Central      Sheffield Sheffield, unparished area
#>   admin_county date_of_introduction              admin_ward ced
#> 1           NA               198001 Nether Edge and Sharrow  NA
#>                   ccg      nuts             pfa admin_district_code
#> 1 NHS South Yorkshire Sheffield South Yorkshire           E08000019
#>   admin_county_code admin_ward_code parish_code parliamentary_constituency_code
#> 1         E99999999       E05010875   E43000173                       E14001467
#>    ccg_code ccg_id_code  ced_code nuts_code lsoa_code msoa_code lau2_code
#> 1 E38000146         03N E99999999     TLE32 E01008112 E02001652 E08000019
#>    pfa_code
#> 1 E23000011

bulk_postcode_lookup(list(postcodes = c("S7 1FL")))
#> Warning in extract_results(r): Bad Request (HTTP 400).

bulk_postcode_lookup(list(postcodes = c("S7 1FL", "S71FL"))) |> 
  lapply(\(x) is.null(x[["result"]]))
#> [[1]]
#> [1] TRUE
#> 
#> [[2]]
#> [1] FALSE

^{Created on 2024-03-05 with reprex v2.1.0}

Hi

I noticed the radius parameter was not having the desired effect in the nearest_postcode function. Possibly due to the extra ? in the query string below?

r <- GET(paste0("https://api.postcodes.io/postcodes/", postcode, "/nearest", "?limit=", limit, "?radius=", radius)) extract_results(r)

I attempted a lookup using the list c("EC1Y8LX", "SW1X 7XL", "DE3 5LF", "DE3 9LR").
All were successful except for "DE3 5LF" for which a "Not Found (HTTP 404)" message was returned. I have since confirmed that "DE3 5LF" is a valid postcode.

Best regards,
Paul

Awesome package to start with!

I discovered via using the package that there is a 100 bulk lookup limit. Correct? If so, I am happy to contribute to make that clear rather than returning a In extract_results(r) : Bad Request (HTTP 400). error which lead me to sanity check my postcodes.

Thanks and hoping it is a valid "issue".

👋 Any plans to submit to CRAN? Anything we can do to help?

As an Openstreetmap mapper, use of postcode datasets comes up frequently, and usually ends up with people saying there's a doubt about licence compatibility. The underlying Codepoint Open is OGL, which is fine for Openstreetmap ODBL and others, but this is only for centroids of postcode areas. The Postcode Address File remains closed. I guess for a lot of uses this isn't an issue, but as many postcode areas are really odd shapes, and in some cases heights - I used to live in a tower block with 3 postcodes comprising different floors, so identical centroids, there could be some use cases that are problematic.

bulk_postcode_lookup() requires postcodes to be a length-one list that contains only a character vector, as exemplified in the function's help page:

pc_list <- list(postcodes = c("PR3 0SG", "M45 6GN", "EX165BL"))
bulk_postcode_lookup(pc_list)

I'm continually caught off-guard by this counter-intuitive requirement. What is the purpose of the list?

Please implement support for accepting a character vector and/or ..., like so:

bulk_postcode_lookup(c("PR3 0SG", "M45 6GN", "EX165BL"))
bulk_postcode_lookup("PR3 0SG", "M45 6GN", "EX165BL")

Those inputs could be coerced into list form under the hood so that the functionality of old code is preserved.