Changes in version 0.6.0 (2026-04-14) Performance Improvements - Significant performance improvements to census vector hierarchy traversal functions - parent_census_vectors() is now 1.9x faster (92% speedup) by caching the full vector list once instead of repeated lookups - child_census_vectors() is now 1.2x faster (23% speedup) with same optimization - Replaced O(n²) rbind operations in loops with efficient list accumulation - Deep hierarchies (8+ levels) see the most improvement - Faster semantic search in find_census_vectors() - N-gram generation is now 1.4x faster (30-40% speedup) - Optimized text processing with pre-allocated vectors - Better performance for all query types and lengths Testing & Quality - Added comprehensive test suite with 43 unit tests - New tests/testthat/ directory structure - All optimizations maintain 100% backward compatibility - No breaking changes to any function signatures or behavior - Added microbenchmark and testthat to Suggests New features - Convenience function to visualize vector hierarchy (visualize_vector_hierarchy()) Various small improvements - Improvements in warnings and messages - Removal of stale code - Download progress reporting and retry logic for robustness against network issues Changes in version 0.5.10 (2025-11-05) - ensure that cancensus won't trigger CRAN check errors if StatCan servers are down - replace shorthand function with regular function definition to address CRAN note Changes in version 0.5.8 - clarify installing API key and cache path in "getting started" vignette - fix caching problem with get_statcan_wds_data - support health region level census data for 2021 via WDS - support download of dissemination block geographies from StatCan Changes in version 0.5.7 (2024-02-10) - fix issue with path names not quoted properly when downoading and unpacking geosuite data - support versions in WDS data, in paricular for federal electoral districts Changes in version 0.5.6 (2023-10-04) - fix issue when using named vectors to query data for non-existent geographies, return NULL in this case instead of throwing error - fix problem with population centre geographic data download - support newly released Forward Sortation Area geography for statcan geography and WDS functionality - remove instances of new native R pipe |> with dplyr pipe %>% to preserve compatibility with older R versions Changes in version 0.5.5 (2023-01-23) - add functionality for direct access to StatCan census WDS for 2021 - add functionality to download original StatCan geographies for 2021 - update CODES_TABLE for 2021 census Changes in version 0.5.4 (2022-11-07) - added ability to query census datasets by year - added a convenience function for creating unique names within given selection of regions from list_census_regions() - added a check and context menu to install sf package when user requests spatial data but does not have the required package installed as opposed to erroring out. - improved checking that correct spatial formats are requested - preparing for 'sp' spatial format usage deprecation in future versions Changes in version 0.5.3 (2022-08-25) - Added a check and context menu to install sf package when user requests spatial data but does not have the required package installed as opposed to stopping with an error. - fixes a bug in the local data recall check Changes in version 0.5.2 (2022-08-19) - resolved broken and relocated links picked up in CRAN pretesting Changes in version 0.5.1 - Added functionality for users to detect and remove locally cached data that has been recalled by Statistics Canada - added a check on initial get_census call that produces a warning if locally cached data has been recalled by Statistics Canada - added option to retrieve higher-resolution geometries in get_census Minor changes - renamed get/set cache/api_key functions to avoid name conflicts with related packages Changes in version 0.5.0 (2022-02-08) Minor changes - Added cache metadata - overview information on cached data - allow selective removing of cached data Changes in version 0.4.3 (2021-06-08) Minor changes - Fixed a problem with sf compatibility and agr attribute - Fixed a problem with querying geographic data for multiple geographic levels Changes in version 0.4.2 (2021-02-09) Minor changes - Fixed a minor problem where cache path wasn't always picked up - Added optional argument keep_parent when calling child_census_vectors() that retains the input parent variable in the list of result. We found that in many cases user would follow up a call to child_census_vectors() with a bind_rows(...) to do this, so this should save a step. Changes in version 0.4.1 (2021-01-27) Minor changes - Fixed minor problem where API key wasn't always picked up if not set correctly as environment variable. - Fixed warning when t column not present in downloaded data. Changes in version 0.4.0 (2021-01-16) Major changes - Added get_intersecting_geometry function to take advantage of new Censusmapper API endpoint. Check out the new vignette detailing how to use it. Minor changes - Slightly reworked how to configure and store user API keys and cache locations. New functions set_api_key, set_cache_path, show_api_key, and show_cache_path added. - Fixes various warnings due to recent changes in tibble and dplyr. Changes in version 0.3.2 (2020-07-16) Major changes - Support for 1996 census - Public availability of dissemination block area level data Minor changes - Fixes bug in find_census_vectors() Changes in version 0.3.1 (2020-06-23) Minor changes - CRAN check issues Changes in version 0.3.0 Major changes - Fully redesigned variable search using find_census_vectors() and deprecation of `search_census_vectors(). See the Data discovery: resources for finding available and relevant data vignette for additional information. - Census Agglomerations with defined geographies and Census tracts are separated from CMAs when calling list_census_regions() - Additional metadata for catalogue information and attribution is returned when calling list_census_datasets() - New functions explore_census_regions and explore_census_vectors which open a browser page towards the interactive discovery and selection tools on the Censusmapper website - New function attribution_for_dataset which provides accurate attribution information for citation and visualizations for a given dataset. - Additional datasets: T1FF taxfiler data and dwelling type crosstabs, made available by CMHC. For more info, see the new vignettes for these datasets: Additional datasets: Structural type of dwelling by document type, Additional datasets: Annual T1FF taxfiler data. - get_census_geometry() is now hard-deprecated and will stop the program flow. Use get_census() instead. Minor changes - Updated internal usage of dependent packages to avoid deprecated functions and warnings - Additional minor fixes to efficiency improvements Changes in version 0.2.2 (2020-05-12) Minor changes - More efficient conversion between sp and sf spatial objects - Fixes issue occasionally reported when reading large GeoJSON objects as noted in https://github.com/mountainMath/cancensus/issues/138 - Adds geojsonsf dependency - Replaces soft deprecated dplyr functions to fix https://github.com/mountainMath/cancensus/issues/137 Changes in version 0.2.1 (2020-03-05) Minor changes - Minor documentation improvements - Allow for search by vector identifier - Allow child and parent vector retrieval by vector identifier - Add functionality for future tax data releases Changes in version 0.2.0 (2019-07-28) Major changes - Added a max_leaves_option for the search_census_vectors function. Adds functionality to set maximum depth for child census vectors, i.e. max_level=NA as an additional parameter. Then e.g. max_level=1 would only get direct children and no grandchildren. - Resolved issues with mislabeled CD UID for CSD level data - Improve reliability of character/numeric alignments for geographic UIDS - get_census_geography is now soft deprecated and rolled into the standard get_census with parameters Minor changes - Minor documentation improvements - Soften dependency on readr package - Allow for search of internal CensusMapper variables Changes in version 0.1.8 (2018-11-20) Major changes - Remove dependency on development versions of sf and ggplot2 packages - Add feature allowing for named vector retrieval Minor Changes - Vignette updates - Calls that retrieve only geography will now return geographic hierarchy information as well - Small tweaks that make it easier to do 2011-2016 intra-census comparisons Bug fixes - Fix labels when geo format is sf - Remove some unnecessary code for geographic hierarchies Changes in version 0.1.7 (2018-02-04) Major changes - Set default caching to tempdir() - Encourage users to set up local persistent caching using options(cancensus.cache_path = 'XXX') Changes in version 0.1.6 (2018-01-24) Major changes - First released on CRAN Minor changes - Ensured that data frames were sf-class data frames if option sf was selected for spatial data. Bug fixes - Fixed a bug where read.csv was incorrectly loading text data if readr::read_csv was not available Changes in version 0.1.5 Major changes - Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package. - Added pkgdown documentation - New vignettes - cancensus and Making maps with cancensus Minor changes - Default behaviour for list_census_vectors() changed to have quiet = TRUE Changes in version 0.1.0 Major changes - Added vector and geography search and discovery capabilities - Improved performance - Error and API issue messaging Minor changes - Reduced package dependencies Changes in version 0.0.1 Major changes - Initial release