agroscope-ch/srppp: R package to deal with XML dumps of the Swiss Register of Plant Protection Products - Version 2.0 adapted to new XML format

This version (v2.0.0, also released to the Comprehensive R Archive Network) of the R package srppp reliably reads in XML files in the original file format that was first used by the Swiss Federal Office of Agriculture (FOAG) and in the current file format as used by the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO). The current description given in the DESCRIPTION file is reproduced below:

"Generate data objects from XML versions of the Swiss Register of Plant Protection Products (SRPPP). An online version of the register can be accessed at https://www.psm.admin.ch/de/produkte. There is no guarantee of correspondence of the data read in using this package with that online version, or with the original registration documents. Also, the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, coordinating the authorisation of plant protection products in Switzerland, does not answer requests regarding this package."

The README contains the following information:

Installation from CRAN

install.packages("srppp")

Installation of the latest development code

install.packages("srppp",
  repos = c("https://agroscope-ch.r-universe.dev", "https://cran.r-project.org"))

Documentation

An online version of the documentation of the current development version of the package is available on github.

See also

You may also be interested in our agroscope-ch/srppphist package containing historical registration data starting from 2011.

Finally, the following items from the NEWS file document the changes since version 1.1.0:

• Adapt to the new format of the XML file. The changes are explained at https://www.blv.admin.ch/blv/de/home/zulassung-pflanzenschutzmittel/zugelassene-pflanzenschutzmittel/pflanzenschutzmittelverzeichnis.html
• Due to UUIDs being used for cross-referencing instead of integer identifiers, the corresponding identifier columns in several tables in the srppp_dm objects have changed their type from integer to character.
• The culture tree constructed from the new version of the XML has changed, among other changes the cultures allg. Obstbau, allg. Feldbau, allg. Gemüsebau and similar are not defined any more as parent cultures of any of the cultures listed. The functionality of resolve_cultures() and alternative_products() is not yet adapted to this new situation and will give a warning when working with a register read in from the new format.