get SEC CIK number from ticker symbol

CIKgetter.R

getCIK = function(ticker) {
  stopifnot(is.character(ticker))
  uri = "http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar"

  response = getForm(uri,CIK=ticker,action="getcompany")
  html = htmlParse(response)
  CIKNode = getNodeSet(html, "//acronym[@title=\"Central Index Key\"][text() = \"CIK\"]")
  CIKNodeText = sapply(CIKNode, function(x) xmlValue(getSibling(getSibling(x))))
  CIK = sub(" .*","",CIKNodeText)
  CIK = sub("^0*","",CIK)
  CIK
}
getCIK("AAPL")

require(XML)
require(RCurl)

for those looking for a python implementation: https://gist.github.com/dougvk/8499335

Can also use the iEDGAR API (PHP example): https://gist.github.com/kregus/e0bc5be2502007bc7f56

A complete Ticker to CIK mapping can be found as a CSV file here: https://www.valuespreadsheet.com/iedgar

Rank & Filed also offers a similar Ticker to CIK mapping in CSV here:
http://rankandfiled.com/#/data/tickers

@Kregus the list you provided by Rank & Filed (http://rankandfiled.com/#/data/tickers) is awesome! Thanks a lot!

sometime an error occurs
Error in UseMethod("getSibling") :
no applicable method for 'getSibling' applied to an object of class "NULL"

Here is the html:

Companies with names matching "YORK CAPITAL MANAGEMENT"
Click on CIK to view company filings
Items 1 - 2

CIK	Company	State/Country
0001480532	York Capital Management Global Advisors, LLC	NY
0000879074	YORK CAPITAL MANAGEMENT L P formerly: YORK CAPITAL MANAGEMENT L P /NY/ (filings through 2009-03-18)	NY

Looks like the SEC changed the site address to an https. The above wasn't working with http:

require(XML)
require(RCurl)

getCIK = function(ticker) {
  stopifnot(is.character(ticker))
  uri = "https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar"
  response = getForm(uri,CIK=ticker,action="getcompany")
  html = htmlParse(response)
  CIKNode = getNodeSet(html, "//acronym[@title=\"Central Index Key\"][text() = \"CIK\"]")
  CIKNodeText = sapply(CIKNode, function(x) xmlValue(getSibling(getSibling(x))))
  CIK = sub(" .*","",CIKNodeText)
  CIK = sub("^0*","",CIK)
  CIK
}

getCIK("GE")
# "40545"

is there a way to do Opposite. by feeding the CIK to the function and have it return the TradingSymbol ???

yes, using the mapping table they provide. Bash/awk implementation below as reference.

curl -sL https://www.sec.gov/include/ticker.txt | sort > tickercik.txt
awk '$2=="yourcik"{print $1}' tickercik.txt

fyi I'm seeing things that don't match up in the Rank and Filed data http://rankandfiled.com/#/data/tickers

for instance Aloca Inc (AA) on the SEC site has cik code 1675149 but on rank and filed it's 4281. 4281 matches up with Arconic Inc (ARNC)