match_table {countries}

Create a conversion table for country names

Description

This function returns a conversion table for country names to the desired naming conventions and languages. The use of fuzzy matching allows more flexibility in recognising and identifying country names.

Usage

match_table(
  x,
  to = c("simple", "ISO3"),
  fuzzy_match = TRUE,
  verbose = FALSE,
  matching_info = FALSE,
  simplify = TRUE,
  na_fill = FALSE,
  poor_matches = TRUE,
  custom_table = NULL
)

Arguments

x

A vector of country names

to

A vector containing one or more desired naming conventions to which x should be converted to (e.g. "ISO3", "name_en", "UN_fr", ...). For a list of all possible values click here or refer to the vignette on country names vignette("dealing_with_names"). Default is c("simple", "ISO3").

fuzzy_match

Logical value indicating whether fuzzy matching of country names should be allowed (TRUE), or only exact matches are allowed (FALSE). Default is TRUE. Switching to FALSE will result in much faster execution.

verbose

Logical value indicating whether the function should print to the console a report on the matching process. Default is FALSE.

matching_info

Logical value. If set to true the output match table will include additional information on the matching of x's entries. Default is FALSE.

simplify

Logical value. If set to TRUE the function will return the match table as a data.frame object. If set to FALSE, the function will return a list object containing the match table and additional details on the country matching process. Default is TRUE.

na_fill

Logical value. If set to TRUE, any NA in the output names will be filled with the original country name supplied in x. The default is FALSE (no filling). In general, NAs are produced if: 1) the country is not present in the nomenclature requested in to (e.g. country_name("Abkhazia", to = "ISO3")), 2) the input country name is NA, 3) No exact match is found and the user sets the option fuzzy_match = FALSE, 4) When the fuzzy match algorithm does not find a good match and the user sets the option poor_match = FALSE. The na_fill argument gives the option to replace the resulting NA with the original value in x.

poor_matches

Logical value. If set to TRUE (the default option), the function will always return the closest matching country name, even if the matching is poor. If set to FALSE, the function will return NA in case of poor matching.

custom_table

Custom conversion table to be used. This needs to be a data.frame object. Default is NULL.

Value

Returns a conversion table for countries names to the desired naming conventions. If simplify=FALSE it returns a list object.

See Also

country_name, is_country

Examples

match_table(x=c("UK","Estados Unidos","Zaire","C#te d^ivoire"), to= c("UN_en","ISO3"))