meta {git2rdata}

Optimize an Object for Storage as Plain Text and Add Metadata

Description

Prepares a vector for storage. When relevant, meta() optimizes the object for storage by changing the format to one which needs less characters. The metadata stored in the meta attribute, contains all required information to back-transform the optimized format into the original format.

In case of a data.frame, meta() applies itself to each of the columns. The meta attribute becomes a named list containing the metadata for each column plus an additional ..generic element. ..generic is a reserved name for the metadata and not allowed as column name in a data.frame.

write_vc uses this function to prepare a dataframe for storage. Existing metadata is passed through the optional old argument. This argument intended for internal use.

Usage

meta(x, ...)

## S3 method for class 'character'
meta(x, na = "NA", optimize = TRUE, ...)

## S3 method for class 'factor'
meta(x, optimize = TRUE, na = "NA", index, strict = TRUE, ...)

## S3 method for class 'logical'
meta(x, optimize = TRUE, ...)

## S3 method for class 'POSIXct'
meta(x, optimize = TRUE, ...)

## S3 method for class 'Date'
meta(x, optimize = TRUE, ...)

## S3 method for class 'data.frame'
meta(
  x,
  optimize = TRUE,
  na = "NA",
  sorting,
  strict = TRUE,
  split_by = character(0),
  ...
)

Arguments

x

the vector.

...

further arguments to the methods.

na

the string to use for missing values in the data.

optimize

If TRUE, recode the data to get smaller text files. If FALSE, meta() converts the data to character. Defaults to TRUE.

index

An optional named vector with existing factor indices. The names must match the existing factor levels. Unmatched levels from x will get new indices.

strict

What to do when the metadata changes. strict = FALSE overwrites the data and the metadata with a warning listing the changes, strict = TRUE returns an error and leaves the data and metadata as is. Defaults to TRUE.

sorting

an optional vector of column names defining which columns to use for sorting x and in what order to use them. The default empty sorting yields a warning. Add sorting to avoid this warning. Strongly recommended in combination with version control. See vignette("efficiency", package = "git2rdata") for an illustration of the importance of sorting.

split_by

An optional vector of variables name to split the text files. This creates a separate file for every combination. We prepend these variables to the vector of sorting variables.

Value

the optimized vector x with meta attribute.

Note

The default order of factor levels depends on the current locale. See Comparison for more details on that. The same code on a different locale might result in a different sorting. meta() ignores, with a warning, any change in the order of factor levels. Add strict = FALSE to enforce the new order of factor levels.

See Also

Other internal: is_git2rdata(), is_git2rmeta(), upgrade_data()

Examples

meta(c(NA, "'NA'", '"NA"', "abc\tdef", "abc\ndef"))
meta(1:3)
meta(seq(1, 3, length = 4))
meta(factor(c("b", NA, "NA"), levels = c("NA", "b", "c")))
meta(factor(c("b", NA, "a"), levels = c("a", "b", "c")), optimize = FALSE)
meta(factor(c("b", NA, "a"), levels = c("a", "b", "c"), ordered = TRUE))
meta(
  factor(c("b", NA, "a"), levels = c("a", "b", "c"), ordered = TRUE),
  optimize = FALSE
)
meta(c(FALSE, NA, TRUE))
meta(c(FALSE, NA, TRUE), optimize = FALSE)
meta(complex(real = c(1, NA, 2), imaginary = c(3, NA, -1)))
meta(as.POSIXct("2019-02-01 10:59:59", tz = "CET"))
meta(as.POSIXct("2019-02-01 10:59:59", tz = "CET"), optimize = FALSE)
meta(as.Date("2019-02-01"))
meta(as.Date("2019-02-01"), optimize = FALSE)