metadata_create: Create metadata tables from survey datasets

In retroharmonize: Ex Post Survey Data Harmonization

Create metadata tables from survey datasets

Description

Create a variable-level metadata table from one or more survey datasets. Metadata are extracted either from survey objects already loaded into memory or directly from survey files.

Usage

metadata_create(survey_list = NULL, survey_paths = NULL, .f = NULL)

metadata_waves_create(survey_list)

Arguments

survey_list	Optional list of survey objects of class [survey()].
survey_paths	Optional character vector containing paths to survey files.
.f	Import function used to read surveys from 'survey_paths'. When 'NULL', the import function is inferred from the file extension.

Details

The resulting metadata table contains information about:

• variable names and labels,

• storage classes,

• value labels,

• user-defined missing values,

• and missing value ranges.

'metadata_create()' is a convenience wrapper around repeated [metadata_survey_create()] calls.

The form metadata_waves_create is deprecated.

Value

A data frame containing variable-level survey metadata.

See Also

[metadata_survey_create()], [create_variable_catalog()]

Other metadata functions: create_codebook(), is.crosswalk_table(), metadata_survey_create()

Examples

examples_dir <- system.file(
  "examples",
  package = "retroharmonize"
)

my_rds_files <- dir(examples_dir)[grepl(
  "\\.rds$",
  dir(examples_dir)
)]

example_surveys <- read_surveys(
  file.path(examples_dir, my_rds_files)
)

metadata_create(example_surveys)

retroharmonize documentation built on May 21, 2026, 9:06 a.m.