ssbtools

ssbtools is a lightweight R package that simplifies retrieving, caching, and reusing data from Statistics Norway (SSB)'s JSON-stat API.

It is especially useful when working with saved queries from SSB's StatBank and when you want to avoid re-downloading large datasets unnecessarily.

Installation (from the R console)

# Install devtools if you haven't already
install.packages("devtools")

# Install ssbtools from GitHub
devtools::install_github("willemdig/ssbtools")

Usage

ssb_get_csv(table_id)

1. Save your query as a .json file from SSB StatBank. (Alternatively, if you know the data table, you can get queries from https://data.ssb.no/api/v0/no/console)
2. Place the file inside a JSON/ folder in your project directory.
3. Use this naming format for the file:

JSON/ssbapi_table_<table_id>.json

Example directory structure:

your-project/
├── JSON/
│   └── ssbapi_table_12030.json

4. In your R script:

library(ssbtools)

df <- ssb_get_csv("12030")

This will:

• Load the query from JSON/ssbapi_table_12030.json
• Download fresh data from SSB (only if the content has changed)
• Save or reuse the result at csv/ssb/ssb_table_12030.csv

Function Reference

ssb_get_csv(table_id)

Retrieves data from SSB using a saved JSON query file, and caches the result as a CSV. Uses hashing to avoid redundant downloads.

ssb_get_metadata(table_id)

Fetches metadata (dimensions and values) for a given SSB table. Useful for understanding the structure before building a query.

ssb_get_full_table(table_id)

Builds a complete query using all values for all variables in the table and retrieves the entire dataset. ⚠️ May return a large result.

Smart Caching

The first time you run ssb_get_csv(), the dataset is fetched from SSB and saved locally.
On later runs, the content is compared using a hash and only updated if it has changed.

ssb_get_full_table() doesn't have this functionality yet, but I'll get back to it.

License

This package is licensed under the MIT License and provided without warranty.
It was developed independently using open data from Statistics Norway (SSB).