Search the ILOSTAT catalogue of ~1,200 indicator dataflows by keywords in the name or id (e.g. "unemployment rate sex age"). All terms must match (AND, case-insensitive), so start with 2–3 English words and drop terms if you get 0 results; results are ranked by ILO relevance weight, not by match count. Reading the id tells you the shape: suffix _RT = rate/ratio, NB = number (usually thousands); dataflows whose second token starts with 2 (e.g. DF_UNE_2EAP…) are ILO modelled estimates with full country/year coverage, the others are reported national data. Returns dataflow ids to use with ilo_get_data / ilo_get_indicator_metadata. Searches the local catalogue only — it does not return statistical values (use ilo_get_data), does not search dimension codes such as countries (use ilo_list_dimension_values) and does not cover non-ILO sources.

Structure of one ILOSTAT dataflow: dimensions (in SDMX key order), their codelists, the time dimension, the source's default selection and the data vintage (last update at the ILO). Use before ilo_get_data to know which filters exist. Does not return statistical values and does not list the codes themselves (use ilo_list_dimension_values).

Valid codes (id + label) of one dimension of an ILOSTAT dataflow — e.g. the country/area codes of REF_AREA (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 such as BRA, plus X-codes for aggregates such as X01 World) or the categories of SEX (SEX_T/SEX_M/SEX_F) and AGE. Use search to resolve a name to a code (e.g. search "Brazil") instead of paging through hundreds of codes; codelists are shared across dataflows, so a code found here is valid wherever the same codelist is used. Use to build correct ilo_get_data filters. Does not return statistical values, does not say which codes actually have data for a given dataflow, and is not applicable to the time dimension (filter it via start_period/end_period in ilo_get_data).

Statistical observations from one ILOSTAT dataflow, filtered by dimension codes (filters, e.g. {"REF_AREA": ["BRA","ARG"], "SEX": "SEX_T"}) and period (start_period/end_period, e.g. "2015"/"2024"). REF_AREA is required, maximum 30 areas per call — for broad panels, split areas into batches and/or paginate by period. Unfiltered dimensions return all their categories. Does not aggregate, convert or otherwise transform values (raw ILOSTAT data only), and does not search indicators (use ilo_search_indicators).