StackData: Stack data set

In NumbersInternational/flipData: Functions for extracting and describing data

Stack data set

Description

Stacks variables in a SPSS .sav data set that may be located locally or on the Displayr cloud drive (if run in Displayr). Stacking may be specified manually and/or by identifying common labels that appear in variable labels.

Manual stacking can be specified by variable or by observation. With the former, each group of variables to be stacked together is specified. With the latter, the variables in each stacked observation are specified (in order of the stacked variables). Any stacking can be performed with either option but often one is more convenient than the other depending on the structure and variable names of the required stacking.

Common label stacking occurs by stacking together groups of variables whose labels match the common labels after removing common prefixes and suffixes. Common labels can be specified to be generated automatically, inferred from a set of input reference variables or specified manually.

The stacked data set is saved as an SPSS .sav data set either locally or to the Displayr cloud drive (if run in Displayr).

Usage

StackData(
  input.data.set.name,
  stacked.data.set.name = NULL,
  stack.with.common.labels = "Automatically",
  reference.variables.to.stack = NULL,
  manual.common.labels = NULL,
  specify.by = "Variable",
  manual.stacking = NULL,
  variables.to.include = NULL,
  include.stacked.data.set.in.output = FALSE,
  include.original.case.variable = TRUE,
  include.observation.variable = TRUE
)

Arguments

input.data.set.name	Name of data file to stack, either as a path to a local file (when running locally in R) or file in the Displayr Cloud Drive (when running in Displayr).
stacked.data.set.name	Name of the stacked data file to be saved in the Displayr Cloud Drive (if run from Displayr) or saved locally.
stack.with.common.labels	"Automatically", "Using a set of variables to stack as reference", "Using manually input common labels", "Disabled".
reference.variables.to.stack	A character vector of sets of variables to stack to be used as a reference to generate the common labels used for stacking. This can be a combination of comma-separated names, wildcards and ranges. Variable ranges can be specified by supplying the start and end variables separated by a dash '-'. If the start or end variables are left out, then the range is assumed to start from the first variable or end at the last variable respectively. Wildcards in variable names can be specified with an asterisk '*'.
manual.common.labels	A list of sets of common labels to be used to identify variables to stack. Only used when stack.with.common.labels is "Using manually input common labels". To be identified, a set of variables to be stacked must contain these labels, and have the same prefix and suffix before and after these labels.
specify.by	"Variable" or "Observation". See manual.stacking.
manual.stacking	If specify.by is "Variable", this is a character vector where each string corresponds to the names of the variables to be stacked into a new variable. If specify.by is "Observation", this is a character vector where each string corresponds the names of the variables in an observation in the stacked variables. The strings in both cases can be a combination of comma-separated names, wildcards and ranges. See reference.variables.to.stack for more details on the format.
variables.to.include	Character vector of comma-separated names of non-stacked variables to include. Each string can be a combination of comma-separated names, wildcards and ranges. See reference.variables.to.stack for more details on the format.
include.stacked.data.set.in.output	Whether to include the stacked data set in the output object.
include.original.case.variable	Whether to include the original_case variable in the stacked data set.
include.observation.variable	Whether to include the observation variable in the stacked data set.

Value

A list with the following elements:

• stacked.data.set.metadata A list containing metadata on the the stacked data set such as variable names, labels etc.

• unstackable.names A list of character vectors containing names of the variables that could not be stacked using common labels due to mismatching types or value attributes.

• common.labels.list A list of character vectors containing the common labels used in the stacking. The source of these common labels depends on the parameter stack.with.common.labels and are either automatically generated, extracted from reference variables or manually supplied.

• is.saved.to.cloud Whether the stacked data set was saved to the Displayr cloud drive.

Examples

path <- system.file("examples", "Cola.sav", package = "flipData")

# Automatic common label stacking and manual stacking by variable
print(StackData(path,
                specify.by = "Variable",
                manual.stacking = c("Q6_*, NA", "Q9_A, Q9_B, Q9_C-Q9_F")))

# Common labels from reference variables and included non-stacked variables
print(StackData(path,
                stack.with.common.labels = "Using a set of variables to stack as reference",
                reference.variables.to.stack = c("Q5_5_*", "Q6_A-Q6_F"),
                variables.to.include = c("Q2")))

# Manually specified common labels and manual stacking by observation
common.labels <- list(c("Coke", "Diet Coke", "Coke Zero", "Pepsi",
                        "Diet Pepsi", "Pepsi Max", "None of these"))
print(StackData(path,
                stack.with.common.labels = "Using manually input common labels",
                manual.common.labels = common.labels,
                specify.by = "Observation",
                manual.stacking = c("Q6_A,Q9_A", "Q6_B,Q9_B", "Q6_C,Q9_C",
                                    "Q6_D,Q9_D", "Q6_E,Q9_E", "Q6_F,Q9_F")))

NumbersInternational/flipData documentation built on March 2, 2024, 10:52 a.m.