clean_strings: String cleaning for easier matching

In fedmatch: Fast, Flexible, and User-Friendly Record Linkage Methods

Description

clean_strings takes a string vector and cleans it according to user-given options.

Usage

clean_strings(
  string,
  sp_char_words = fedmatch::sp_char_words,
  common_words = NULL,
  remove_char = NULL,
  remove_words = FALSE,
  stem = FALSE
)

Arguments

string	character or character vector of strings
sp_char_words	character vector. Data.frame where first column is special characters and second column is full words. The default is
common_words	data.frame. Data.frame where first column is abbreviations and second column is full words.
remove_char	character vector. string of specific characters (for example, "letters") to be removed
remove_words	logical. If TRUE, removes all abbreviations and replacement words in common_words
stem	logical. If TRUE, words are stemmed

Details

This function takes a variety of options, each of which changes the behavior. Without the default settings, clean_strings will do the following: make the string lowercase; replace special characters &, $, \ names ("and", "dollar", "percent", "at"); convert tabs to spaces and removes extra spaces. This default cleaning puts the strings in a standard format to allow for easier matching.

The other options allow for the removal or replacement of other words or characters.

Value

cleaned strings

fedmatch documentation built on Nov. 23, 2021, 1:07 a.m.