bls-matlab

A basic Matlab class to pull data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics using their Public API here.

Usage

Basic usage:

b = bls();
data = fetch(b, 'LNS11000000');

Or, register on the BLS website for a Public Data API account here. Then, take advantage of the increased daily query limit and other features:

b = bls([], MY_API_KEY);
data = fetch(b, 'PRS85006092', 'catalog', 'true');

For full documentation, see the inline help:

help bls
help bls.fetch

Setup

Navigate to a location where you store user-written Matlab code, such as:

C:\Users\username\Documents\MATLAB
/home/username/Documents/MATLAB

Run

git clone https://github.com/micahjsmith/bls-matlab.git

Add to MATLAB path (from command window):

addpath(genpath('/absolute/path/to/bls-matlab'))

That should do it. Check your matlabpath if you are having problems here. Add the above command to your startup.m file to have bls-matlab available every time you use MATLAB.

Notes

Alternatives

The BlsData.jl package (by the same author) provides expanded functionality for pulling from BLS in Julia.
The FredData.jl package (by the same author) provides functionality for pulling from Fred in Julia which provides access to almost all BLS series, albeit with different series IDs.

Limitations

the BLS API enforces limits on requests - see here for a summary
the BLS API exposes only 10 years of data at once; if you request more than this, your request will be truncated. At this point, bls-matlab does not automatically make multiple requests to handle this situation, you must batch your requests yourself.
I don't use MATLAB anymore and have limited capacity for maintenance - are you a motivated user of bls-matlab? Email me about helping with maintenance of this project.

Compatibility

tested on 2019a
requires >2015a for the webservices/restful functionality.
for pre-2015a usage, see the compatible-lt-15a branch which allows you to enjoy this functionality at the expense of downloading the urlread2 and JSONlab user-written packages from Mathworks File Exchange. This branch has not received any further development or bug fixes.

micahjsmith / bls-matlab