retype: Return simple data types

Description

retype transforms all elements into simple classes. The simple classes are date, numeric and character. By transforming all elements to these classes no information is lost, while simplifying the object. See details below for more information or type vignette("retype") in the console.

Usage

retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for default
retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for logical
retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for integer
retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for Date
retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for POSIXct
retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for numeric
retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for list
retype(.x, ...)
# S3 method for data.frame
retype(.x, ...)

Value

For vectors: simple class of .x.

For data.frame: a tbl data frame with simple classes.

NULL

Arguments

.x: vector or data.frame
...: column names to be evaluated. Only if .x is a data frame.

Details

Each vector past to retype is reclassified into the highest position in a simplification hierarchy without loosing any information. This means that: Factors are converted to characters. However, character vectors (or vectors changed to character initially) are checked to see if they could be a numeric vector without error. If so, it is transformed into a numeric vector which is higher in the hierarchy. Vectors of class logical, integer are changed to numerical. Dates and date time (POSIXct) goes through the same procedure. Lists and complex vectors are left unchanged because the are neither simple nor complicated.

Examples

Run this code

# Dates
dte <- as.Date(c("2018-01-01", "2016-03-21", "1970-01-05"))
retype(dte)
retype(dte)

# Factors
fct <- as.factor(c("good", "bad", "average"))
retype(dte)

# Character that only contains numeric elements
num_chr <- c("3","4.0", "3,5")
retype(num_chr)

# Logical
lgl <- c(TRUE, FALSE, TRUE)
retype(lgl)

# Data frame with all the above vectors
df <- data.frame(dte = dte, 
                 fct = fct, 
                 num_chr = num_chr, 
                 lgl = lgl, 
                 stringsAsFactos = FALSE)
df
retype(df)