API
General Information
USAspending.gov is pleased to announce the availability of its data in an Application Programming Interface (API).
The API consists of two methods, fpds.php and faads.php, that allow access to the data to the Federal contracts and Federal assistance databases respectively. All data present on USAspending.gov is available through the API, except for pie charts and end-of-search totals.
Summary for contracts for the state of Alabama: List of assistance transactions to entities with "Smith" in their name for FY 2006: Methods
NEW! Important: By default API calls will retrieve a maximum of 1000 records per call, in order to save bandwidth. You can retrieve a fewer number of records by specifying "max_records" parameter. If you want to retrieve all the records you can make multiple calls by varying the value of starting record position using "records_from" parameter. Please don't attempt to retrieve large subsections of the database through repeated calls to the API.
The two links below show how to retrieve data in XML through API calls: XML Formats
The XML format will vary by the level of detail: detail = -1 (summary) will produce different
output than detail = 4 (complete). The XML formats will hopefully be fairly self explanatory; for
meanings of specific data fields, consult the data dictionary. There are also format examples within the two methods pages linked above.
//www.usaspending.gov/fpds/fpds.php?datype=X&detail=-1&state=AL
//www.usaspending.gov/faads/faads.php?datype=X&detail=2&recipient_name=Smith&fiscal_year=2006
