NEWS.md

In labelled: Manipulating Labelled Data

labelled 2.16.0

New features

• new function to_gt() for converting the result of look_for() into a nicely formatted table (#189)
• new functions dictionary_to_variable_labels() and dictionary_to_value_labels() to convert a dictionary data frame into a list of variable / value labels (#183)
• new .overwrite argument for set_variable_labels() and set_value_labels() (#183)
• new sep argument for names_prefixed_by_values()
• new arguments (sep_value_labels and sep_other) for convert_list_columns_to_character() and lookfor_to_long_format()

Bug fix

• copy_labels() is now less restrictive and accept tibble with list columns (#187)

labelled 2.15.0

New features

• {labelled} functions are now compatible with survey design objects created with the {survey} package (#174)
• argument user_na_to_na has been added to to_factor.data.frame() (#178)

labelled 2.14.1

Bug fix

• fix a bug introduced in 2.14.0 in set_variable_labels() when using .labels argument (#171)

labelled 2.14.0

New features

• in update_variable_labels_with(), it is now possible to access the variable name inside .fn by using names() (#163)
• var_label() gets new options "na" and "empty" for null_action

Improvements

• systematic use of {cli} for errors, warnings and messages (#167)

labelled 2.13.0

New features

• add a null_action argument to val_labels(), val_label() and a .null_action argument to set_value_labels(), add_value_labels() and remove_value_labels() (#145)
• new functions update_variable_labels_with() and update_value_labels_with() allowing to update variable/value labels with a custom function (#153)

Bug fix

• avoid an error with print.look_for() when console pane is physically shrunk too small (#148)
• fix in recode.haven_labelled() when .x contains NA and .combine_value_labels = TRUE (#151)
• produce an error when trying to assign value labels to a Date vector (#156)

labelled 2.12.0

New features

• support of variable labels for packed columns, see dedicated vignette (#142)
• new helpers label_attribute(), get_label_attribute() and set_label_attribute() to manipulate the "label" attribute on any object (#142)
• new functions get_variable_labels(), get_value_labels(), get_na_values() and get_na_range() identical to var_label(), val_labels(), na_values() and na_range(), respectively
• to_character() method for data frames (#140)

labelled 2.11.0

Improvements

• set_value_labels(), add_value_labels(), remove_value_labels(), set_variable_labels(), set_na_range() and set_na_values() can now be applied on a vector (#126)
• new argument null_action for var_label() when applied on a data frame (#131)
• look_for() now returns "missing" (number of NAs) by default (#133)

Bug fixes

• bug fix in print.look_for() (#135)
• bug fix in unlabelled() for classic vectors, now remained unchanged (#137)

labelled 2.10.0

• look_for() now accepts survey objects (#121)

labelled 2.9.1

• improved error messages for missing variable names (#118, @ajb5d)
• better implementation of look_for() when no keyword is provided (#116)
• bug fix in user_na_to_tagged_na() (#114)

labelled 2.9.0

look_for() improvements:

• new function look_for_and_select() (#87)
• look_for() can now search within factor levels and value labels (#104)

improvements for tagged NAs:

• better printing of value labels (#89)
• new functions user_na_to_tagged_na(), tagged_na_to_user_na() and tagged_na_to_regular_na()
• new option explicit_tagged_na in to_factor() and to_character()
• new functions unique_tagged_na(), duplicated_tagged_na(), order_tagged_na(), sort_tagged_na() (#90, #91)

other improvements:

• new functions is_user_na() and is_regular_na()
• new set of unit tests (#99)
• trying to apply a value label, na_range() or na_values() to a factor will now produce an error
• bug fix in foreign_to_labelled() for Stata files (#100)

labelled 2.8.0

• new helper recode_if() for recoding values based on condition, variable and value labels being preserved (#82)
• look_for() could be time consuming for big data frames. Now, by default, only basic details of each variable are computed. You can compute all details with details = "full" (#77)
• printing of look_for() results has been updated and do not rely anymore on pillar (#85)
• to_labelled() can properly manage factors whose levels are coded as "[code] level", as produced by to_factor(levels = "prefixed") (#74 @courtiol)
• new function is_prefixed() to check if a factor is prefixed
• bug fix for na_range<- and na_values<- when applied to a data.frame (#80)

labelled 2.7.0

• a .values argument has been added to set_na_values() and set_na_range(), allowing to pass a list of values
• a .strict option has been added to set_variable_labels(), set_value_labels(), add_value_labels(), remove_value_labels(), set_na_values() and set_na_range(), allowing to pass values for columns not observed in the data (it could be useful for using a same list of labels for several data.frame sharing some variables) (#70)
• copy_labels() is less restrictive for non labelled vectors, copying variable label even if the two vectors are not of the same type (#71)
• a .strict option has been added to copy_labels() (#71)

labelled 2.6.0

• look_for() has been redesigned:
  • look_for() now returns a tibble
  • columns with multiple values for each variable are now stored as named lists
  • a print method has been added for a clearer presentation of results in the console
  • use lookfor_to_long_format() to convert results with one row per factor level and per value label
  • use convert_list_columns_to_character() to convert list columns to simpler character vectors
  • generate_dictionary() is an equivalent of look_for()
• set_variable_labels, set_value_labels, add_value_labels, and remove_value_labels now accept "tidy dots" (#67 @psanker)
• new function names_prefixed_by_values() to get the names of a vector prefixed by their corresponding value

labelled 2.5.0

• new .keep_value_labels argument for recode.haven_labelled()
• new .combine_value_labels argument for recode.haven_labelled() (#61)
• new drop_unused_value_labels() method
• an additional .labels argument for set_value_labels()
• user_na_to_na argument has been added to to_character.haven_labelled()
• %>% is now imported from dplyr
• a cheatsheet has been added (#47)
• internal documentation is now using roxygen2 markdown support

labelled 2.4.0

• fixes for haven 2.3.0 (#59 by @hadley)
• correct re-export of functions from haven
• update_labelled() has been improved to allow to reconstruct all labelled vectors created with a previous version of haven

labelled 2.3.1

• an additional argument keep_var_label for remove_labels()
• bug fix for unlabelled() when applied on a vector
• when using unclass = TRUE with to_factor(), attributes are not removed anymore

labelled 2.3.0

• new function unlabelled()

labelled 2.2.2

• bug fix for look_for() (#52 by @NoahMarconi)
• bug fix in val_labels_to_na() documentation

labelled 2.2.1

• bug fix for na_range() and na_values(): variable labels are now preserved (#48, thanks to @mspittler)

labelled 2.2.0

• new function copy_labels_from(), compliant with dplyr syntax
• update_labelled() is now more strict (#42 by @iago-pssjd)
• new functions look_for() and lookfor() imported from questionr (#44)
• new unlist option for var_label()
• tagged_na() and similar functions are now imported from haven

labelled 2.1.0

• var_label(), applied to a data.frame, now accepts a character vector of same length as the number of columns.
• set_variable_labels has a new .labels argument.
• New unclass option in to_factor(), to be used when strict = TRUE (#36)
• Following haven version 2.1.0, it is not mandatory anymore to define a value label before defining a SPSS style missing value. labelled_spss(), na_values() and na_range() have been updated accordingly (#37)

labelled 2.0.2

• to_factor() bug fix then applied on a data.frame (#33)

labelled 2.0.1

• update_labelled() bug fix then applied on a data.frame (#31)

labelled 2.0.0

BREAKING CHANGE

• Following version 2.0.0 of haven, labelled() and labelled_spss() now produce objects with class "haven_labelled" and "haven_labelled_spss", due to conflict between the previous "labelled" class and the "labelled" class used by Hmisc.
• A new function update_labelled() could be used to convert data imported with an older version of haven to the new classes.

Other changes

• user_na_to_na option added to to_factor()
• foreign_to_labelled() now import SPSS missing values (#27)
• a strict argument added to to_factor() (#25)
• remove_attributes() preserve character vectors (#30)

labelled 1.1.0

• extend dplyr::recode() method to be compatible with labelled vectors.
• copy_labels() now copy also na_range and na_values attributes.
• new method remove_attributes()

labelled 1.0.1

• bug fix: argument drop_unused_labels could now be used with to_factor.data.frame()
• new labels argument for to_labelled() method when applied to a factor
• bug fix: appropriate column names with data.frame (#20)

labelled 1.0.0

• now imports haven
• new function to deal with user defined missing values (SPSS style): na_values(), na_range(), set_na_values(), set_na_values(), remove_user_na(), user_na_to_na().
• remove_labels() has been updated.

labelled 0.2.3

• new functions set_variable_labels(), set_value_labels(), add_value_labels() and remove_value_labels() compatible with %>%.
• new functions remove_val_labels and remove_var_label().
• bug fix in to_character.labelled() when applied to data frames.

labelled 0.2.2

• to_factor(), to_character() and to_labelled.factor() now preserves variable label.
• bug fix in to_factor() when applied to data frames.

labelled 0.2.0

• Following evolution of haven, labelled doesn't support missing values anymore (cf. https://github.com/hadley/haven/commit/4b12ff9d51ddb9e7486966b85e0bcff44992904d)
• New function to_character() (cf. https://github.com/larmarange/labelled/commit/3d32852587bb707d06627e56407eed1c9d5a49de)
• to_factor() could now be applied to a data.frame (cf. https://github.com/larmarange/labelled/commit/ce1d750681fe0c9bcd767cb83a8d72ed4c5fc5fb)
• If data.table is available, labelled attribute are now changed by reference (cf. https://github.com/larmarange/labelled/commit/c8b163f706122844d798e6625779e8a65e5bbf41)
• zap_labels() added as a synonym of remove_labels()

labelled documentation built on Nov. 5, 2025, 5:32 p.m.