---
title: "Validating GTFS feeds"
output: rmarkdown::html_vignette
vignette: >
  %\VignetteIndexEntry{Validating GTFS feeds}
  %\VignetteEngine{knitr::rmarkdown}
  %\VignetteEncoding{UTF-8}
---

```{r, include = FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>",
  eval = identical(tolower(Sys.getenv("NOT_CRAN")), "true"),
  out.width = "100%"
)
```

Transport planners and researchers very frequently want to assess the quality
of the GTFS feeds they have produced and consumed. Are the feeds structured
according to the [best
practices](https://github.com/MobilityData/GTFS_Schedule_Best-Practices) agreed
by members of the larger GTFS community? Are tables and fields adequately
formatted? Is the information described in the feed reasonable (vehicle speeds,
stop locations, etc.)? These are some of the questions that may arise when
dealing with GTFS data.

In order to answer these puzzling questions, **gtfstools** includes
`validate_gtfs()`, a function that wraps the [Canonical GTFS
Validator](https://github.com/MobilityData/gtfs-validator) developed by
MobilityData. The validator requires Java 11 or higher to run - you can check
the version you have currently installed with the command `java -version` on a
terminal session or with the command `system("java -version")` from your R
session. If need be, you can download Java 11 from
https://jdk.java.net/java-se-ri/11.

Using `validate_gtfs()` is very simple and requires no more than a few function
calls. First we need to download the validator command-line tool. We can do it
manually from MobilityData releases, or we can use `download_validator()`. This
function takes a path to a directory where the validator should be saved to and
a validator version, which defaults to the latest release, and returns the path
to the downloaded validator. Please note that manually downloaded validators
should be saved with the same filename convention used by the function (i.e.
`gtfs-validator-vX.Y.Z.jar`). This is important to make sure that our
validation function can correctly parse the command-line tool version, which
controls some of its behavior.

```{r}
library(gtfstools)

latest_validator <- download_validator(tempdir())
latest_validator
```

The second (and final) step is actually running `validate_gtfs()`. To do that
we need some GTFS data, which the function accepts in varying formats: it can be
a GTFS object, as created with `read_gtfs()`, a path to local GTFS file, an URL
to a feed or a path to a local directory containing the GTFS data. It also
takes a path to the directory where the validator output should be saved to and
the path to the validator, previously generated with `download_validator()`.
Let's see how it works, using the same GTFS data in three different formats:

```{r}
data_path <- system.file("extdata/spo_gtfs.zip", package = "gtfstools")

path_output_dir <- tempfile("validation_from_path")
validate_gtfs(data_path, path_output_dir, latest_validator)
list.files(path_output_dir)
```

As we can see, the validation generates a few output files:

- `report.html`, shown below, summarizes the validation results in a nicely
  formatted HTML page (only available when using validator v3.1.0 or higher);
- `report.json` summarizes the exact same information, but in JSON format,
  which can be used to easily parse and process the results;
- `system_errors.json` summarizes eventual system erros that may have happened
  during the validation and may compromise the results;
- `validation_stderr.txt` lists the informative messages sent by the
  command-line tool to the standard error output stream, which includes the
  list of validators in use, eventual error messages, etc;
- had the command-line tool printed anything to the standard output stream, the
  content would have been saved in `validation_stdout.txt`[^1].

[^1]: Please note that the content of `validation_stdout.txt` and
`validation_stderr.txt` may slightly vary depending on the version of the
validator.

```{r, echo = FALSE}
knitr::include_graphics("../man/figures/html_validation_report.png")
```

Had we run the validator using the same GTFS data in different formats (an URL
or a GTFS object, for example) the results would be exactly the same:

```{r}
gtfs_url <- "https://github.com/ipeaGIT/gtfstools/raw/master/inst/extdata/spo_gtfs.zip"
gtfs <- read_gtfs(data_path)

url_output_dir <- tempfile("validation_from_url")
validate_gtfs(gtfs_url, url_output_dir, latest_validator)

object_output_dir <- tempfile("validation_from_object")
validate_gtfs(gtfs, object_output_dir, latest_validator)

validation_content <- function(path) {
  report_json_path <- file.path(path, "report.json")
  suppressWarnings(report_json_content <- readLines(report_json_path))
  return(report_json_content)
}

path_output_content <- validation_content(path_output_dir)
url_output_content <- validation_content(url_output_dir)
object_output_content <- validation_content(object_output_dir)

identical(path_output_content, url_output_content)
identical(path_output_content, object_output_content)
```

Once again, it's important to acknowledge that `validate_gtfs()` only exists thanks to the hard-work of folks at [MobilityData/gtfs-validator](https://github.com/MobilityData/gtfs-validator). A huge shoutout to them!
