Documentation on start_time and end_time formats

[AndreaPasqualini]

When I need to download annual data, I can simply set the input parameters start_time and end_time in OECD::get_dataset() to integers. This is also shown in the examples provided. However, the documentation does not specify what to do to with time other than years. For example, consider the OECD dataset MEI_CLI, that has monthly data. An example SDMX data URL is

https://stats.oecd.org/restsdmx/sdmx.ashx/GetData/MEI_CLI/LOLITOAA.FRA+DEU+ITA+ESP.M/all?startTime=2000-01&endTime=2019-12

In R, I would write

cli_filters <- list(
    "LOLITOAA",
    c("DEU", "FRA", "ESP", "ITA"),
    "M"
)
cli_raw <- get_dataset("MEI_CLI", filter=cli_filters)

What would I write as arguments for start_time and end_time? If I read the SDMX URL, I get the hint that I can write start_time="2000-01", in the fashion YYYY-MM. However, this is undocumented.

This issue is only meant to suggest to improve the documentation.

[luifrancgom]

I concur with the point mentioned. This might not be intuitive for the end user, especially if they are not familiar with the API documentation.