big thank you to Alisa Solomatina, our Summer 2024 Intern, for writing this article and for writing our package of example Candid API calls using the R programming lanaguage!

At the heart of Candid's data accessibility lies its robust API (Application Programming Interface) – a tool which allows you to directly interact with Candid database programmatically. It provides a way to retrieve, update, and manage data without the need for manual intervention, opening up opportunities for task automation and streamlining processes such as creation of TFLs.

If not sure where to start, the Candid API documentation page is a great way to begin your journey with the API (your Candid user account must have API access activated in order to view and use the API help page). The API Help provides detailed descriptions of available API calls, endpoints, parameters, and example values/responses. It also features an interactive interface that lets you try out and experiment with API calls directly within Candid – so you can interact with the live data and see the results in real-time without the need for extra programming or any other software.

There are many ways how the API can be used to interact with the Candid database.

Here is an example where R and the API are working together to retrieve TFL metadata, titles and footnotes and then merge them together, simulating creation of a TFL:

For performance and security reasons, Candid API uses same 2-step pattern for retrieving data. First, a GET request is used to retrieve the IDs of an object type (TFLs, Issues, Test Results etc). And after that, these IDs are sent back to the server in the body of a POST request to get back the details for each of the IDs sent.

First step is to retrieve TFL IDs through a GET request – output would usually be an array of integers (IDs):

Now, these IDs can be sent back to the server via a POST request to retrieve actual TFL data which is displayed as an interactive R table, that makes it easy to view and manipulate data:

The same process is used when retrieving titles and footnotes. First, we extract title and footnote IDs with a GET request:

And then retrieve the title and footnote content through a POST request.

Now, the titles and footnotes can be applied to each TFL, formatted and stored in a separate text document. The final result looks like this: More detailed documentation and instructions on how to run API calls can be found in the Candid User Guide. R code examples could also be provided on request.

Learn More

Contact us to see code examples in R, request a free Candid trial or for more information about Candid and its features, please visit zeroarc.com or schedule a free demo.