- each word separated by a space will be searched for in the index. So using:
ptitle=Labour Force
in the parameter list will return all series that are related to Products with 'Labour' or 'Force' in the Product Title. - a phrase enclosed in inverted commas will be searched for as a single value. eg.
ptitle="Labour Force"
will return all series that are related to Products with 'Labour Force' in the Product Title.
ABS Time Series Directory
User assistance for the Time Series Directory, machine to machine access to ABS time series metadata.
The ABS provides an API for querying & returning a user defined subset of ABS time series metadata. The API is designed to be used in a machine-to-machine context. The metadata returned from a query can be, and is typically used to facilitate the automated download of the ABS time series spreadsheet/s associated with the parameters defined in that query.
Key information
Time series metadata can be accessed using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) formula to query the ABS Time Series Directory service. This enables access to time series metadata without having to download time series spreadsheets. The metadata returned is in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format, and provides a single source of time series information at the granular level of individual time series. The information returned includes metadata already available on time series spreadsheets provided on the ABS web site, as well as statistical product relationships and URLs to the actual spreadsheets.
See the List of Topics in the Time Series Directory section for a listing of available statistical topics by title and catalogue number.
Using the Time Series Directory
1. Start with the base url
https://abs.gov.au/servlet/TSSearchServlet?
2. Append any combination of the available search parameters to the base url
Where:
- ptitle = Topic
- ttitle = Table title
- sid = Series ID
- catno = Catalogue/Product number
- pg = Page number
Search parameters can be combined using '&' to customise your query.
ptitle=<ptitlevalue>&ttitle=<ttitlevalue>&sid=<sidvalue>&catno=<catnovalue>&pg=<pagenumber>
eg.
https://abs.gov.au/servlet/TSSearchServlet?catno=6401.0&ttitle="table 5"
combines the catno= and ttitle= search values to return all time series metadata from table 5 in catalogue number 6401.0.
Search value formats:
ptitle=
ttitle=
- each value will be treated as an distinct word, unless * is used at the end of the value. So:
ttitle=count
will only return results that contain the distinct word 'count' in the Table Title. So the correct way to return all table titles that contain 'country' would be to use:
ttitle=count* - Only the start of independent words can be searched for. So using:
ttitle=*count*
will fail. It is not possible to prefix the value 'count' with * and receive results where the Table Title contains words like 'Accounting' - capitalisation is ignored
- The query engine drops commonly occurring words like "the", "an", "a", "of", "in", etc. So:
ttitle=of
will be ignored.
sid=
- use the complete Series ID, eg.
sid=A183774X
will return only the series information for Series ID = A183774X - use the start of the Series ID, eg.
sid=A1837*
will return series information for all series that have Series ID beginning with 'A1837' - capitalisation is ignored
catno=
- use the complete Catalogue/Product Number, eg.
catno=6401.0
will return series information for all series that relate to Product Number 6401.0 - use the start of a catalogue/product number, eg.
catno=62*
will return series information for all series that relate to Product Numbers beginning with '62' such as '6202.0' and '6248.0.55.001'.
pg=
- Results are returned in pages of 100 series. The number of results are displayed at the top of each xml page, eg.
<Info>Your search returned 6824 series information. If you want access to the rest please add a pg parameter to the url.</Info>SeriesCount>100</SeriesCount>
<NumPages>69</NumPages>
<CurPage>1</CurPage>
- The default page number is 1. So adding:
pg=4
to your query parameter list will cause the series results numbered 301-400 to be displayed. <CurPage>4</CurPage> will be displayed at the top of the page 4.
3. Time series metadata will be returned in XML format
XML format examples:
(Note that multiple <series> nodes may be returned between the <TimeSeriesIndex> tags.)
For less than 100 series returned:
<TimeSeriesIndex>
<SeriesCount></SeriesCount>
<Series>
<ProductNumber></ProductNumber>
<ProductTitle></ProductTitle>
<ProductIssue></ProductIssue>
<ProductReleaseDate></ProductReleaseDate>
<ProductURL></ProductURL>
<TableURL></TableURL>
<TableTitle></TableTitle>
<TableOrder></TableOrder>
<Description></Description>
<Unit></Unit>
<SeriesType></SeriesType>
<DataType</DataType>
<Frequency></Frequency>
<CollectionMonth></CollectionMonth>
<SeriesStart></SeriesStart>
<SeriesEnd></SeriesEnd>
<NoObs></NoObs>
<SeriesID></SeriesID>
</Series>
</TimeSeriesIndex>
For more than 100 series returned:
<TimeSeriesIndex>
<Info>Your search returned x series information. If you want access to the rest please add a pg parameter to the url.</Info>
<SeriesCount></SeriesCount>
<NumPages></NumPages>
<CurPage></CurPage>
<Series>
<ProductNumber></ProductNumber>
<ProductTitle></ProductTitle>
<ProductIssue></ProductIssue>
<ProductReleaseDate></ProductReleaseDate>
<ProductURL></ProductURL>
<TableURL></TableURL>
<TableTitle></TableTitle>
<TableOrder></TableOrder>
<Description></Description>
<Unit></Unit>
<SeriesType></SeriesType>
<DataType</DataType>
<Frequency></Frequency>
<CollectionMonth></CollectionMonth>
<SeriesStart></SeriesStart>
<SeriesEnd></SeriesEnd>
<NoObs></NoObs>
<SeriesID></SeriesID>
</Series>
</TimeSeriesIndex>
List of Topics in the Time Series Directory