{trapinch}

A simple R package to interface with the PokéAPI service, based on {httr2}.

Why ‘Trapinch’? Because it’s a Pokémon whose name contains ‘R API’ and it wasn’t claimed on Repokemon yet, lol.

Installation

You can install {trapinch} from GitHub with help from {remotes}:

if (!require(remotes)) install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("matt-dray/trapinch")

The package depends on R version 4.1 since it uses R_user_dir() and the base pipe, |>.

Examples

Functions are all prefaced get_*() and return a list. The generic request function is get_pokeapi(), to which you can provide an endpoint and resource of interest. Each endpoint also has its own function to which you need only supply the resource of interest, like get_pokemon() or get_type().

For example, retrieve a named Pokémon’s details:

bulba <- trapinch::get_pokemon("bulbasaur")
bulba$moves[[1]]$move$name
#> [1] "razor-wind"

Or retrieve an item’s details:

ball <- trapinch::get_item("poke-ball")
ball$flavor_text_entries[[1]]$text
#> [1] "A tool used for\ncatching wild\nPOKéMON."

If you’re wondering what endpoints and resources exist, you can find them in the resource_lookups list object. The endpoints:

names(trapinch::resource_lookups)
#>  [1] "ability"                   "berry"                    
#>  [3] "berry-firmness"            "berry-flavor"             
#>  [5] "characteristic"            "contest-effect"           
#>  [7] "contest-type"              "egg-group"                
#>  [9] "encounter-condition"       "encounter-condition-value"
#> [11] "encounter-method"          "evolution-chain"          
#> [13] "evolution-trigger"         "gender"                   
#> [15] "generation"                "growth-rate"              
#> [17] "item"                      "item-attribute"           
#> [19] "item-category"             "item-fling-effect"        
#> [21] "item-pocket"               "language"                 
#> [23] "location"                  "location-area"            
#> [25] "machine"                   "move"                     
#> [27] "move-ailment"              "move-battle-style"        
#> [29] "move-category"             "move-damage-class"        
#> [31] "move-learn-method"         "move-target"              
#> [33] "nature"                    "pal-park-area"            
#> [35] "pokeathlon-stat"           "pokedex"                  
#> [37] "pokemon"                   "pokemon-color"            
#> [39] "pokemon-form"              "pokemon-habitat"          
#> [41] "pokemon-shape"             "pokemon-species"          
#> [43] "region"                    "stat"                     
#> [45] "super-contest-effect"      "type"                     
#> [47] "version"                   "version-group"

And an example resource table for Pokémon types:

head(trapinch::resource_lookups[["type"]])
#>   id     name                               url
#> 1  1   normal https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/type/1/
#> 2  2 fighting https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/type/2/
#> 3  3   flying https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/type/3/
#> 4  4   poison https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/type/4/
#> 5  5   ground https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/type/5/
#> 6  6     rock https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/type/6/

See the PokéAPI documentation for full details of what can be returned.

Similar projects

Wrappers in several languages are named on the PokéAPI website, but none are for R. I did find a couple of smaller-scale, non-{httr2} packages on GitHub: UBC-MDS’s {pokedex} and Eva Nguyen’s {pokeWrapper}. I had, however, overlooked an important one: Ash Baldry has already written the {pokeapi} package, which uses {httr2} and was released several months prior to {trapinch}. Whoops!

Thanks

This package was made easier with help from the:

• PokéAPI documentation
• {httr2} documentation
• {httptest2} documentation
• HTTP Testing book from rOpenSci