Establish a Connection to the WRDS Database

Establishes a connection to the Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) database using the RPostgres package. It requires that the RPostgres package be installed and that valid WRDS credentials be set as environment variables.

Usage

get_wrds_connection()

Value

An object of class DBIConnection representing the connection to the WRDS database. This object can be used with other DBI-compliant functions to interact with the database.

Details

The function checks if the RPostgres package is installed before attempting to establish a connection. It uses the host, dbname, port, and sslmode as fixed parameters for the connection. Users must set their WRDS username and password as environment variables WRDS_USER and WRDS_PASSWORD, respectively, before using this function.

See also

RPostgres::Postgres(), DBI::dbDisconnect() for more information on managing database connections.

Other WRDS functions: disconnect_connection(), download_data_wrds(), download_data_wrds_ccm_links(), download_data_wrds_compustat(), download_data_wrds_crsp(), download_data_wrds_fisd(), download_data_wrds_trace_enhanced(), set_wrds_credentials()

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
  # Before using this function, set your WRDS credentials:
  # Sys.setenv(WRDS_USER = "your_username", WRDS_PASSWORD = "your_password")

  # con <- get_wrds_connection()
  # Use `con` with DBI-compliant functions to interact with the WRDS database
  # Remember to disconnect after use:
  # disconnect_connection(con)
} # }