TableToLongForm {TableToLongForm}

Convert a Table to a LongForm data.frame

Description

TableToLongForm automatically converts hierarchical Tables intended for a human reader into a simple LongForm Dataframe that is machine readable.

Use this function to run TableToLongForm on the specified matrix Table. All other arguments are optional.

Once the conversion is complete, the user is recommended to check the result for correctness and to consider tidying up the variable names.

Usage

TableToLongForm(Table, IdentResult = NULL,
                IdentPrimary = "combound",
                IdentAuxiliary = "sequence",
                ParePreRow = NULL,
                ParePreCol = c("mismatch", "misalign", "multirow"),
                fulloutput = FALSE,
                diagnostics = FALSE, diagnostics.trim = TRUE)

Arguments

Table

the Table to convert, given as a character matrix. Also accepts a data.frame, which is coerced to a matrix with a warning.

IdentResult

an optional list specifying the locations of the various elements of the Table. By default this is automatically generated but it can be specified manually where the automatic detection fails.

IdentPrimary

The Primary Ident algorithm, of which one is chosen. See details.

IdentAuxiliary

Auxiliary Ident algorithms, of which any combination, in any order, can be chosen. They are called after the Primary algorithm, to refine the IdentResult. See details.

ParePreRow

Pre-requisite algorithms that tidy up the Row Labels for correct operation of the Main Parentage algorithm. Any combination of these algorithms, in any order, can be chosen. See details.

ParePreCol

Pre-requisite algorithms that tidy up the Column Labels for correct operation of the Main Parentage algorithm. Any combination of these algorithms, in any order, can be chosen. See details.

fulloutput

if TRUE, returns a list containing additional information primarily useful for diagnostic purposes. Otherwise, and by default, the function only returns the converted data.frame object.

diagnostics

a character vector specifying the name of the file diagnostic output will be written to. Can also be TRUE, in which case the file name will be the name of the object specified in Table.

diagnostics.trim

a logical indicating whether the diagnostics output should be trimmed. A good idea to keep TRUE (default) as trimmed output is generally more useful.

Details

For more details on TableToLongForm refer to the website: https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~joh024/Research/TableToLongForm/

Specifically, the 'Technical Report' gives a rounded introduction to TableToLongForm, including a short user manual, some examples and a complete gallery of recognised patterns.

'Working with Modules' gives an introduction to creating new modules/algorithms for TableToLongForm, to extend its capabilities.

Finally, the Literate Document has the complete documentation of the source code for TableToLongForm.

Value

The converted Table as a data.frame object.

Examples

  ## load Toy Examples data
  data(TCData)

  ## Convert ToyExComplete
  TableToLongForm(TCData$ToyExComplete)