NEWS

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orcidtr 0.1.0 (2026-01-15)

Breaking Changes (December 28, 2025)

Authentication Behavior

• IMPORTANT: The package no longer automatically uses the ORCID_TOKEN environment variable for API requests
• Reason: The ORCID public API does NOT require authentication and actually rejects invalid tokens with 401 errors
• Impact: If you previously set ORCID_TOKEN and experienced authentication errors, you can now safely unset it
• Migration: If you need authentication (for rate limits or private data), pass the token explicitly: orcid_works(id, token = "your-token")
• Authentication is now truly optional as intended by ORCID's public API design

Bug Fixes (December 28, 2025)

API Status Check

• Fixed orcid_ping() to use application/json instead of text/plain Accept header
• Now properly parses JSON response and returns "OK" when API is healthy
• Resolves 406 (Not Acceptable) errors from the status endpoint

Search Results

• Fixed empty search results returning 1 row of NA values instead of 0 rows
• orcid_search() and orcid() now correctly return empty data.table with 0 rows when no matches found
• attr(result, "found") still correctly shows 0 for total matches

Parser Improvements

• Enhanced parse_search_results() to handle NA values from safe_extract() when JSON contains null
• Prevents creation of placeholder rows with NA values

Documentation Improvements (December 28, 2025)

Clarified Authentication

• Updated README and vignette to explicitly state authentication is optional
• Explained when tokens are actually needed (rate limits, private data access)
• Provided OAuth2 flow example for users who do need tokens
• Corrected misconceptions from rorcid documentation about token requirements

Internal Documentation

• Updated orcid_request() documentation to reflect optional authentication
• Clarified that public API works without any token
• Improved error messages for authentication failures

Test Suite (December 28, 2025)

• Removed ORCID_TOKEN checks from all test helper functions
• All 302 tests now pass without requiring any authentication
• Tests correctly handle both authenticated and unauthenticated scenarios

Initial Release Features

Biographical Data Functions

• orcid_person(): Fetch complete person/biographical data
• orcid_bio(): Retrieve biography text
• orcid_keywords(): Get researcher keywords
• orcid_researcher_urls(): Fetch researcher URLs
• orcid_external_identifiers(): Get external identifiers (Scopus, ResearcherID, etc.)
• orcid_other_names(): Retrieve alternative names
• orcid_address(): Get address/country information
• orcid_email(): Fetch email addresses (if public)

Professional Activities Functions

• orcid_distinctions(): Fetch distinctions and honors
• orcid_invited_positions(): Get invited positions
• orcid_memberships(): Retrieve professional memberships
• orcid_qualifications(): Fetch qualifications
• orcid_services(): Get service activities
• orcid_research_resources(): Retrieve research resources

Employment and Education

• orcid_employments(): Fetch employment history
• orcid_educations(): Retrieve education records

Research Outputs

• orcid_works(): Get works/publications
• orcid_funding(): Fetch funding records
• orcid_peer_reviews(): Retrieve peer review activities

Activities Summary

• orcid_activities(): Fetch all activities in one call (returns named list of all activity types)

Search Functions

• orcid(): Flexible Solr query search of ORCID registry
• orcid_search(): User-friendly search with named parameters
• orcid_doi(): Search for ORCID records by DOI

Batch Operations

• orcid_fetch_record(): Get complete ORCID record (supports all sections)
• orcid_fetch_many(): Batch fetch for multiple ORCIDs

Utilities

• orcid_ping(): Check ORCID API status

Technical Details

• Full ORCID API v3.0 support
• CRAN-compliant implementation
• Comprehensive test coverage (302 tests) with skip_on_cran() guards
• All functions return data.table objects for efficient data manipulation
• Complete roxygen2 documentation
• Built with modern httr2 package for HTTP requests
• No authentication required for public data access
• Optional token support for enhanced rate limits