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Configure settings

Source: R/oc_config.R
oc_config.Rd

Configure session settings for opencage.

Usage

oc_config(
  key = Sys.getenv("OPENCAGE_KEY"),
  rate_sec = getOption("oc_rate_sec", default = 1L),
  no_record = getOption("oc_no_record", default = TRUE),
  show_key = getOption("oc_show_key", default = FALSE),
  ...
)

Arguments

key

Your OpenCage API key as a character vector of length one. Do not pass the key directly as a parameter, though. See details.

rate_sec

Numeric vector of length one. Sets the maximum number of requests sent to the OpenCage API per second. Defaults to the value set in the oc_rate_sec option, or, in case that does not exist, to 1L.

no_record

Logical vector of length one. When TRUE, OpenCage will not create log entries of the queries and will not cache the geocoding requests. Defaults to the value set in the oc_no_record option, or, in case that does not exist, to TRUE.

show_key

Logical vector of length one. This is only relevant when debugging oc_forward() or oc_reverse() calls with the return = "url_only" argument. When TRUE, the result will show your OpenCage API key in the URL as stored in the OPENCAGE_KEY environment variable. When not TRUE, the API key will be replaced with the string OPENCAGE_KEY. show_key defaults to the value set in the oc_show_key option, or, in case that does not exist, to FALSE.

...

Ignored.

Set your OpenCage API key

opencage will conveniently retrieve your API key if it is saved in the environment variable "OPENCAGE_KEY". oc_config() will help to set that environment variable. Do not pass the key directly as a parameter to the function, though, as you risk exposing it via your script or your history. There are three safer ways to set your API key instead:

  1. Save your API key as an environment variable in .Renviron as described in What They Forgot to Teach You About R or Efficient R Programming. From there it will be fetched by all functions that call the OpenCage API. You do not even have to call oc_config() to set your key; you can start geocoding right away. If you have the usethis package installed, you can edit your .Renviron with usethis::edit_r_environ(). We strongly recommend storing your API key in the user-level .Renviron, as opposed to the project-level. This makes it less likely you will share sensitive information by mistake.

  2. If you use a package like keyring to store your credentials, you can safely pass your key in a script with a function call like this oc_config(key = keyring::key_get("opencage")).

  3. If you call oc_config() in an base::interactive() session and the OPENCAGE_KEY environment variable is not set, it will prompt you to enter the key in the console.

Set your OpenCage API rate limit

The rate limit allowed by the API depends on the OpenCage plan you purchased and ranges from 1 request/sec for the "Free Trial" plan to 15 requests/sec for the "Medium" or "Large" plans, see https://opencagedata.com/pricing for details and up-to-date information. You can set the rate limit persistently across sessions by setting an oc_rate_sec option in your .Rprofile. If you have the usethis package installed, you can edit your .Rprofile with usethis::edit_r_profile().

Prevent query logging and caching

By default, OpenCage will store your queries in its server logs and will cache the forward geocoding requests on their side. They do this in order to speed up response times and to be able to debug errors and improve their service. Logs are automatically deleted after six months according to OpenCage's page on data protection and GDPR.

If you set no_record to TRUE, the query contents are not logged nor cached. OpenCage still records that you made a request, but not the specific query you made. oc_config(no_record = TRUE) sets the oc_no_record option for the active R session, so it will be used for all subsequent OpenCage queries. You can set the oc_no_record option persistently across sessions in your .Rprofile.

For increased privacy opencage sets no_record to TRUE, by default. Please note, however, that opencage always caches the data it receives from the OpenCage API locally, but only for as long as your R session is alive.

For more information on OpenCage's policies on privacy and data protection see their FAQs, their GDPR page, and, for the no_record parameter, see the relevant blog post.