This function allows two types of arguments:
named list: A named list object holding the translations.
data.frame: A data.frame with one ore more column pairs. Each column
pair consists of a column holding the original values, which should be replaced,
and a second character column holding the new labels which should be
assigned to the original values. Use the arguments col_old and col_new
in order to define which columns are holding original values and which
columns hold the new labels. The names of the resulting translations
are defined by a character vector given in argument translation.
Furthermore, each translation can have a different ordering which can be
configured by a character vector given in argument ordering.
as.lama_dictionary(.data, ...) # S3 method for list as.lama_dictionary(.data, ...) # S3 method for lama_dictionary as.lama_dictionary(.data, ...) # S3 method for default as.lama_dictionary(.data = NULL, ...) # S3 method for data.frame as.lama_dictionary(.data, translation, col_old, col_new, ordering = rep("row", length(translation)), ...)
| .data | An object holding the translations.
|
|---|---|
| ... | Various arguments, depending on the data type of |
| translation | A character vector holding the names of all translations |
| col_old | This argument is only used, if the argument given in |
| col_new | This argument is only used, if the argument given in |
| ordering | This argument is only used, if the argument given in
|
A new lama_dictionary class object holding the passed in translations.
A translation is a named character vector of non zero length.
This named character vector defines
which labels (of type character) should be assigned to which values
(can be of type character, logical or numeric)
(e.g. the translation c("0" = "urban", "1" = "rural") assigns the label
"urban" to the value 0 and "rural" to the value 1, for example the
variable x = c(0, 0, 1) is translated to x_new = c("urban", "urban", "rural")).
Therefore, a translation (named character vector) contains the following information:
The names of the character vector entries correspond to the
original variable levels.
Variables of types numeric or logical are turned automatically into a
character vector (e.g. 0 and 1 are treated like "0" and "1").
The entries (character strings) of the character vector correspond to
the new labels, which will be assigned to the original variable levels.
It is also allowed to have missing labels (NAs).
In this case, the original values are mapped onto missing values.
The function lama_translate() is used in order to apply a translation on a variable.
The resulting vector with the assigned labels can be of the following types:
character: An unordered vector holding the new character labels.
factor with character levels: An ordered vector holding the new character labels.
The original variable can be of the following types:
character vector: This is the simplest case. The character values will replaced by the corresponding labels.
numeric or logical vector: Vectors of type numeric or logical will be turned into character vectors automatically before the translation process and then simply processed like in the character case. Therefore, it is sufficient to define the translation mapping for the character case, since it also covers the numeric and logical case.
factor vector with levels of any type: When translating factor variables one can decide whether or not to keep the original ordering. Like in the other cases the levels of the factor variable will always be turned into character strings before the translation process.
It is also possible to handle missing values with lama_translate().
Therefore, the used translation must contain a information that tells how
to handle a missing value. In order to define such a translation
the missing value (NA) can be escaped with the character string "NA_".
This can be useful in two situations:
All missing values should be labeled
(e.g. the translation c("0" = "urban", "1" = "rural", NA_ = "missing")
assigns the character string "missing" to all missing values of a variable).
Map some original values to NA
(e.g. the translation c("0" = "urban", "1" = "rural", "2" = "NA_", "3" = "NA_")
assigns NA (the missing character) to the original values 2 and 3).
Actually, in this case the translation definition does not always have to
use this escape mechanism, but only
when defining the translations inside of a YAML file,
since the YAML parser does not recognize missing values.
Each lama_dictionary class object can contain multiple translations,
each with a unique name under which the translation can be found.
The function lama_translate() uses a lama_dictionary class object
to translate a normal vector or to translate one or more columns in a
data.frame.
Sometimes it may be necessary to have different translations
for the same variable, in this case it is best to have multiple
translations with different names
(e.g. area_short = c("0" = "urb", "1" = "rur") and
area = c("0" = "urban", "1" = "rural")).
## Example-1: Initialize a lama-dictionary from a list oject ## holding the translations obj <- list( country = c(uk = "United Kingdom", fr = "France", NA_ = "other countries"), language = c(en = "English", fr = "French") ) dict <- as.lama_dictionary(obj) dict#> #> --- lama_dictionary --- #> Variable 'country': #> uk fr NA_ #> "United Kingdom" "France" "other countries" #> #> Variable 'language': #> en fr #> "English" "French" #>## Example-2: Initialize a lama-dictionary from a data frame ## holding the label assignment rules df_map <- data.frame( c_old = c("uk", "fr", NA), c_new = c("United Kingdom", "France", "other countries"), l_old = c("en", "fr", NA), l_new = factor(c("English", "French", NA), levels = c("French", "English")) ) dict <- as.lama_dictionary( df_map, translation = c("country", "language"), col_old = c("c_old", "l_old"), col_new = c("c_new", "l_new"), ordering = c("row", "new") ) # 'country' is ordered as in the 'df_map' # 'language' is ordered differently ("French" first) dict#> #> --- lama_dictionary --- #> Variable 'country': #> uk fr NA_ #> "United Kingdom" "France" "other countries" #> #> Variable 'language': #> fr en #> "French" "English" #>