clean_names_rdbr: Clean and standardize column names in a data.frame

In reptiledbr: Interface to the Reptile Database for Querying and Retrieving Taxonomic Data

Clean and standardize column names in a data.frame

Description

This function standardizes column names in a data.frame to make them syntactically valid and consistent. It converts uppercase to lowercase, removes spaces and special characters, replaces accents, and ensures names are unique and valid for R. It is an alternative to the janitor::clean_names() function implemented in base R.

Usage

clean_names_rdbr(
  df,
  case = c("snake", "lower_camel", "upper_camel", "screaming_snake"),
  replace_special_chars = TRUE,
  unique_names = TRUE
)

Arguments

df	A data.frame or tibble whose column names you want to clean.
case	The case format for the resulting names. Options: "snake" (default): names_with_underscores "lower_camel": namesWithCamelCase "upper_camel": NamesWithCamelCase "screaming_snake": NAMES_WITH_UNDERSCORES
replace_special_chars	Logical. If TRUE (default), replaces accented and special characters with their ASCII equivalents (e.g., "a with accent" becomes "a").
unique_names	Logical. If TRUE (default), ensures the resulting names are unique by adding numeric suffixes to duplicates.

Details

The cleaning process includes:

• Converting everything to lowercase (except in camel or screaming_snake formats)

• Replacing accents and common special characters with their ASCII equivalents

• Removing parentheses and their content

• Replacing non-alphanumeric characters with underscores

• Removing redundant underscores (leading, trailing, or duplicated)

• Ensuring names don't start with numbers (adding "x" at the beginning)

• Applying the selected case format

• Ensuring names are unique by adding numeric suffixes

Value

A data.frame with the same data as the input but with clean and standardized column names according to the specified parameters.

reptiledbr documentation built on Aug. 8, 2025, 7:15 p.m.