Skip to contents

This vignette can be referred to by citing the following:

Patil et al., (2022). datawizard: An R Package for Easy Data Preparation and Statistical Transformations. Journal of Open Source Software, 7(78), 4684, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.04684

Introduction

datawizard package aims to make basic data wrangling easier than with base R. The data wrangling workflow it supports is similar to the one supported by the tidyverse package combination of dplyr and tidyr. However, one of its main features is that it has a very few dependencies: {stats} and {utils} (included in base R) and insight, which is the core package of the easystats ecosystem. This package grew organically to simultaneously satisfy the “0 non-base hard dependency” principle of easystats and the data wrangling needs of the constituent packages in this ecosystem.

One drawback of this genesis is that not all features of the tidyverse packages are supported since only features that were necessary for easystats ecosystem have been implemented. Some of these missing features (such as summarize or the pipe operator %>%) are made available in other dependency-free packages, such as {poorman}. It is also important to note that datawizard was designed to avoid namespace collisions with tidyverse packages.

In this article, we will see how to go through basic data wrangling steps with datawizard. We will also compare it to the tidyverse syntax for achieving the same. This way, if you decide to make the switch, you can easily find the translations here. This vignette is largely inspired from dplyr’s Getting started vignette.

Equivalence with {dplyr} / {tidyr}

Before we look at them individually, let’s first have a look at the summary table of this equivalence.

Function Tidyverse equivalent(s)
data_filter() dplyr::filter(), dplyr::slice()
data_select() dplyr::select()
data_modify() dplyr::mutate()
data_arrange() dplyr::arrange()
data_extract() dplyr::pull()
data_rename() dplyr::rename()
data_relocate() dplyr::relocate()
data_to_long() tidyr::pivot_longer()
data_to_wide() tidyr::pivot_wider()
data_join() dplyr::inner_join(), dplyr::left_join(), dplyr::right_join(),
dplyr::full_join(), dplyr::anti_join(), dplyr::semi_join()
data_peek() dplyr::glimpse()
data_unite() tidyr::unite()
data_separate() tidyr::separate()

Filtering

data_filter() is a wrapper around subset(). However, if you want to have several filtering conditions, you can either use & (as in subset()) or , (as in dplyr::filter()).

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_filter(
    skin_color == "light",
    eye_color == "brown"
  )

# or
starwars %>%
  data_filter(
    skin_color == "light" &
      eye_color == "brown"
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  filter(
    skin_color == "light",
    eye_color == "brown"
  )
## # A tibble: 7 × 14
##   name      height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year sex   gender
##   <chr>      <int> <dbl> <chr>      <chr>      <chr>          <dbl> <chr> <chr> 
## 1 Leia Org…    150    49 brown      light      brown             19 fema… femin…
## 2 Biggs Da…    183    84 black      light      brown             24 male  mascu…
## 3 Padmé Am…    185    45 brown      light      brown             46 fema… femin…
## 4 Cordé        157    NA brown      light      brown             NA NA    NA    
## 5 Dormé        165    NA brown      light      brown             NA fema… femin…
## 6 Raymus A…    188    79 brown      light      brown             NA male  mascu…
## 7 Poe Dame…     NA    NA brown      light      brown             NA male  mascu…
## # ℹ 5 more variables: homeworld <chr>, species <chr>, films <list>,
## #   vehicles <list>, starships <list>
## # A tibble: 7 × 14
##   name      height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year sex   gender
##   <chr>      <int> <dbl> <chr>      <chr>      <chr>          <dbl> <chr> <chr> 
## 1 Leia Org…    150    49 brown      light      brown             19 fema… femin…
## 2 Biggs Da…    183    84 black      light      brown             24 male  mascu…
## 3 Padmé Am…    185    45 brown      light      brown             46 fema… femin…
## 4 Cordé        157    NA brown      light      brown             NA NA    NA    
## 5 Dormé        165    NA brown      light      brown             NA fema… femin…
## 6 Raymus A…    188    79 brown      light      brown             NA male  mascu…
## 7 Poe Dame…     NA    NA brown      light      brown             NA male  mascu…
## # ℹ 5 more variables: homeworld <chr>, species <chr>, films <list>,
## #   vehicles <list>, starships <list>

Selecting

data_select() is the equivalent of dplyr::select(). The main difference between these two functions is that data_select() uses two arguments (select and exclude) and requires quoted column names if we want to select several variables, while dplyr::select() accepts any unquoted column names.

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_select(select = c("hair_color", "skin_color", "eye_color"))
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  select(hair_color, skin_color, eye_color)
## # A tibble: 6 × 3
##   hair_color  skin_color  eye_color
##   <chr>       <chr>       <chr>    
## 1 blond       fair        blue     
## 2 NA          gold        yellow   
## 3 NA          white, blue red      
## 4 none        white       yellow   
## 5 brown       light       brown    
## 6 brown, grey light       blue
# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_select(select = -ends_with("color"))
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  select(-ends_with("color"))
## # A tibble: 6 × 11
##   name     height  mass birth_year sex   gender homeworld species films vehicles
##   <chr>     <int> <dbl>      <dbl> <chr> <chr>  <chr>     <chr>   <lis> <list>  
## 1 Luke Sk…    172    77       19   male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 2 C-3PO       167    75      112   none  mascu… Tatooine  Droid   <chr> <chr>   
## 3 R2-D2        96    32       33   none  mascu… Naboo     Droid   <chr> <chr>   
## 4 Darth V…    202   136       41.9 male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 5 Leia Or…    150    49       19   fema… femin… Alderaan  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 6 Owen La…    178   120       52   male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## # ℹ 1 more variable: starships <list>
# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_select(select = -(hair_color:eye_color))
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  select(!(hair_color:eye_color))
## # A tibble: 6 × 11
##   name     height  mass birth_year sex   gender homeworld species films vehicles
##   <chr>     <int> <dbl>      <dbl> <chr> <chr>  <chr>     <chr>   <lis> <list>  
## 1 Luke Sk…    172    77       19   male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 2 C-3PO       167    75      112   none  mascu… Tatooine  Droid   <chr> <chr>   
## 3 R2-D2        96    32       33   none  mascu… Naboo     Droid   <chr> <chr>   
## 4 Darth V…    202   136       41.9 male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 5 Leia Or…    150    49       19   fema… femin… Alderaan  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 6 Owen La…    178   120       52   male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## # ℹ 1 more variable: starships <list>
# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_select(exclude = regex("color$"))
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  select(-contains("color$"))
## # A tibble: 6 × 11
##   name     height  mass birth_year sex   gender homeworld species films vehicles
##   <chr>     <int> <dbl>      <dbl> <chr> <chr>  <chr>     <chr>   <lis> <list>  
## 1 Luke Sk…    172    77       19   male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 2 C-3PO       167    75      112   none  mascu… Tatooine  Droid   <chr> <chr>   
## 3 R2-D2        96    32       33   none  mascu… Naboo     Droid   <chr> <chr>   
## 4 Darth V…    202   136       41.9 male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 5 Leia Or…    150    49       19   fema… femin… Alderaan  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## 6 Owen La…    178   120       52   male  mascu… Tatooine  Human   <chr> <chr>   
## # ℹ 1 more variable: starships <list>
# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_select(select = is.numeric)
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  select(where(is.numeric))
## # A tibble: 6 × 3
##   height  mass birth_year
##    <int> <dbl>      <dbl>
## 1    172    77       19  
## 2    167    75      112  
## 3     96    32       33  
## 4    202   136       41.9
## 5    150    49       19  
## 6    178   120       52

You can find a list of all the select helpers with ?data_select.

Modifying

data_modify() is a wrapper around base::transform() but has several additional benefits:

  • it allows us to use newly created variables in the following expressions;
  • it works with grouped data;
  • it preserves variable attributes such as labels;
  • it accepts expressions as character vectors so that it is easy to program with it

This last point is also the main difference between data_modify() and dplyr::mutate().

# ---------- datawizard -----------
efc %>%
  data_modify(
    c12hour_c = center(c12hour),
    c12hour_z = c12hour_c / sd(c12hour, na.rm = TRUE),
    c12hour_z2 = standardize(c12hour)
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
efc %>%
  mutate(
    c12hour_c = center(c12hour),
    c12hour_z = c12hour_c / sd(c12hour, na.rm = TRUE),
    c12hour_z2 = standardize(c12hour)
  )
##   c12hour e16sex e42dep c172code neg_c_7 c12hour_c  c12hour_z c12hour_z2
## 1      16      2      3        2      12     -67.6 -0.9420928 -0.9420928
## 2     148      2      3        2      20      64.4  0.8974967  0.8974967
## 3      70      2      3        1      11     -13.6 -0.1895335 -0.1895335
## 4      NA      2   <NA>        2      10        NA         NA         NA
## 5     168      2      4        2      12      84.4  1.1762224  1.1762224
## 6      16      2      4        2      19     -67.6 -0.9420928 -0.9420928

data_modify() accepts expressions as strings:

new_exp <- c(
  "c12hour_c = center(c12hour)",
  "c12hour_z = c12hour_c / sd(c12hour, na.rm = TRUE)"
)
data_modify(efc, new_exp)
##   c12hour e16sex e42dep c172code neg_c_7 c12hour_c  c12hour_z
## 1      16      2      3        2      12     -67.6 -0.9420928
## 2     148      2      3        2      20      64.4  0.8974967
## 3      70      2      3        1      11     -13.6 -0.1895335
## 4      NA      2   <NA>        2      10        NA         NA
## 5     168      2      4        2      12      84.4  1.1762224
## 6      16      2      4        2      19     -67.6 -0.9420928

This makes it easy to use it in custom functions:

miles_to_km <- function(data, var) {
  data_modify(
    data,
    paste0("km = ", var, "* 1.609344")
  )
}

distance <- data.frame(miles = c(1, 8, 233, 88, 9))
distance
##   miles
## 1     1
## 2     8
## 3   233
## 4    88
## 5     9
miles_to_km(distance, "miles")
##   miles         km
## 1     1   1.609344
## 2     8  12.874752
## 3   233 374.977152
## 4    88 141.622272
## 5     9  14.484096

Sorting

data_arrange() is the equivalent of dplyr::arrange(). It takes two arguments: a data frame, and a vector of column names used to sort the rows. Note that contrary to most other functions in datawizard, it is not possible to use select helpers such as starts_with() in data_arrange().

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_arrange(c("hair_color", "height"))
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  arrange(hair_color, height)
## # A tibble: 6 × 14
##   name      height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year sex   gender
##   <chr>      <int> <dbl> <chr>      <chr>      <chr>          <dbl> <chr> <chr> 
## 1 Luke Sky…    172    77 blond      fair       blue            19   male  mascu…
## 2 Leia Org…    150    49 brown      light      brown           19   fema… femin…
## 3 Owen Lars    178   120 brown, gr… light      blue            52   male  mascu…
## 4 Darth Va…    202   136 none       white      yellow          41.9 male  mascu…
## 5 R2-D2         96    32 NA         white, bl… red             33   none  mascu…
## 6 C-3PO        167    75 NA         gold       yellow         112   none  mascu…
## # ℹ 5 more variables: homeworld <chr>, species <chr>, films <list>,
## #   vehicles <list>, starships <list>

You can also sort variables in descending order by putting a "-" in front of their name, like below:

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_arrange(c("-hair_color", "-height"))
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  arrange(desc(hair_color), -height)
## # A tibble: 6 × 14
##   name      height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year sex   gender
##   <chr>      <int> <dbl> <chr>      <chr>      <chr>          <dbl> <chr> <chr> 
## 1 Darth Va…    202   136 none       white      yellow          41.9 male  mascu…
## 2 Owen Lars    178   120 brown, gr… light      blue            52   male  mascu…
## 3 Leia Org…    150    49 brown      light      brown           19   fema… femin…
## 4 Luke Sky…    172    77 blond      fair       blue            19   male  mascu…
## 5 C-3PO        167    75 NA         gold       yellow         112   none  mascu…
## 6 R2-D2         96    32 NA         white, bl… red             33   none  mascu…
## # ℹ 5 more variables: homeworld <chr>, species <chr>, films <list>,
## #   vehicles <list>, starships <list>

Extracting

Although we mostly work on data frames, it is sometimes useful to extract a single column as a vector. This can be done with data_extract(), which reproduces the behavior of dplyr::pull():

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_extract(gender)
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  pull(gender)
## [1] "masculine" "masculine" "masculine" "masculine" "feminine"  "masculine"

We can also specify several variables in select. In this case, data_extract() is equivalent to data_select():

starwars %>%
  data_extract(select = contains("color"))
## # A tibble: 6 × 3
##   hair_color  skin_color  eye_color
##   <chr>       <chr>       <chr>    
## 1 blond       fair        blue     
## 2 NA          gold        yellow   
## 3 NA          white, blue red      
## 4 none        white       yellow   
## 5 brown       light       brown    
## 6 brown, grey light       blue

Renaming

data_rename() is the equivalent of dplyr::rename() but the syntax between the two is different. While dplyr::rename() takes new-old pairs of column names, data_rename() requires a vector of column names to rename, and then a vector of new names for these columns that must be of the same length.

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_rename(
    pattern = c("sex", "hair_color"),
    replacement = c("Sex", "Hair Color")
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  rename(
    Sex = sex,
    "Hair Color" = hair_color
  )
## # A tibble: 6 × 14
##   name    height  mass `Hair Color` skin_color eye_color birth_year Sex   gender
##   <chr>    <int> <dbl> <chr>        <chr>      <chr>          <dbl> <chr> <chr> 
## 1 Luke S…    172    77 blond        fair       blue            19   male  mascu…
## 2 C-3PO      167    75 NA           gold       yellow         112   none  mascu…
## 3 R2-D2       96    32 NA           white, bl… red             33   none  mascu…
## 4 Darth …    202   136 none         white      yellow          41.9 male  mascu…
## 5 Leia O…    150    49 brown        light      brown           19   fema… femin…
## 6 Owen L…    178   120 brown, grey  light      blue            52   male  mascu…
## # ℹ 5 more variables: homeworld <chr>, species <chr>, films <list>,
## #   vehicles <list>, starships <list>

The way data_rename() is designed makes it easy to apply the same modifications to a vector of column names. For example, we can remove underscores and use TitleCase with the following code:

to_rename <- names(starwars)

starwars %>%
  data_rename(
    pattern = to_rename,
    replacement = tools::toTitleCase(gsub("_", " ", to_rename, fixed = TRUE))
  )
## # A tibble: 6 × 14
##   Name     Height  Mass `Hair Color` `Skin Color` `Eye Color` `Birth Year` Sex  
##   <chr>     <int> <dbl> <chr>        <chr>        <chr>              <dbl> <chr>
## 1 Luke Sk…    172    77 blond        fair         blue                19   male 
## 2 C-3PO       167    75 NA           gold         yellow             112   none 
## 3 R2-D2        96    32 NA           white, blue  red                 33   none 
## 4 Darth V…    202   136 none         white        yellow              41.9 male 
## 5 Leia Or…    150    49 brown        light        brown               19   fema…
## 6 Owen La…    178   120 brown, grey  light        blue                52   male 
## # ℹ 6 more variables: Gender <chr>, Homeworld <chr>, Species <chr>,
## #   Films <list>, Vehicles <list>, Starships <list>

It is also possible to add a prefix or a suffix to all or a subset of variables with data_addprefix() and data_addsuffix(). The argument select accepts all select helpers that we saw above with data_select():

starwars %>%
  data_addprefix(
    pattern = "OLD.",
    select = contains("color")
  ) %>%
  data_addsuffix(
    pattern = ".NEW",
    select = -contains("color")
  )
## # A tibble: 6 × 14
##   name.NEW       height.NEW mass.NEW OLD.hair_color OLD.skin_color OLD.eye_color
##   <chr>               <int>    <dbl> <chr>          <chr>          <chr>        
## 1 Luke Skywalker        172       77 blond          fair           blue         
## 2 C-3PO                 167       75 NA             gold           yellow       
## 3 R2-D2                  96       32 NA             white, blue    red          
## 4 Darth Vader           202      136 none           white          yellow       
## 5 Leia Organa           150       49 brown          light          brown        
## 6 Owen Lars             178      120 brown, grey    light          blue         
## # ℹ 8 more variables: birth_year.NEW <dbl>, sex.NEW <chr>, gender.NEW <chr>,
## #   homeworld.NEW <chr>, species.NEW <chr>, films.NEW <list>,
## #   vehicles.NEW <list>, starships.NEW <list>

Relocating

Sometimes, we want to relocate one or a small subset of columns in the dataset. Rather than typing many names in data_select(), we can use data_relocate(), which is the equivalent of dplyr::relocate(). Just like data_select(), we can specify a list of variables we want to relocate with select and exclude. Then, the arguments before and after1 specify where the selected columns should be relocated:

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_relocate(sex:homeworld, before = "height")
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
starwars %>%
  relocate(sex:homeworld, .before = height)
## # A tibble: 6 × 14
##   name       sex   gender homeworld height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color
##   <chr>      <chr> <chr>  <chr>      <int> <dbl> <chr>      <chr>      <chr>    
## 1 Luke Skyw… male  mascu… Tatooine     172    77 blond      fair       blue     
## 2 C-3PO      none  mascu… Tatooine     167    75 NA         gold       yellow   
## 3 R2-D2      none  mascu… Naboo         96    32 NA         white, bl… red      
## 4 Darth Vad… male  mascu… Tatooine     202   136 none       white      yellow   
## 5 Leia Orga… fema… femin… Alderaan     150    49 brown      light      brown    
## 6 Owen Lars  male  mascu… Tatooine     178   120 brown, gr… light      blue     
## # ℹ 5 more variables: birth_year <dbl>, species <chr>, films <list>,
## #   vehicles <list>, starships <list>

In addition to column names, before and after accept column indices. Finally, one can use before = -1 to relocate the selected columns just before the last column, or after = -1 to relocate them after the last column.

# ---------- datawizard -----------
starwars %>%
  data_relocate(sex:homeworld, after = -1)
## # A tibble: 6 × 14
##   name     height  mass hair_color skin_color eye_color birth_year species films
##   <chr>     <int> <dbl> <chr>      <chr>      <chr>          <dbl> <chr>   <lis>
## 1 Luke Sk…    172    77 blond      fair       blue            19   Human   <chr>
## 2 C-3PO       167    75 NA         gold       yellow         112   Droid   <chr>
## 3 R2-D2        96    32 NA         white, bl… red             33   Droid   <chr>
## 4 Darth V…    202   136 none       white      yellow          41.9 Human   <chr>
## 5 Leia Or…    150    49 brown      light      brown           19   Human   <chr>
## 6 Owen La…    178   120 brown, gr… light      blue            52   Human   <chr>
## # ℹ 5 more variables: vehicles <list>, starships <list>, sex <chr>,
## #   gender <chr>, homeworld <chr>

Reshaping

Longer

Reshaping data from wide to long or from long to wide format can be done with data_to_long() and data_to_wide(). These functions were designed to match tidyr::pivot_longer() and tidyr::pivot_wider() arguments, so that the only thing to do is to change the function name. However, not all of tidyr::pivot_longer() and tidyr::pivot_wider() features are available yet.

We will use the relig_income dataset, as in the {tidyr} vignette.

relig_income
## # A tibble: 18 × 11
##    religion `<$10k` `$10-20k` `$20-30k` `$30-40k` `$40-50k` `$50-75k` `$75-100k`
##    <chr>      <dbl>     <dbl>     <dbl>     <dbl>     <dbl>     <dbl>      <dbl>
##  1 Agnostic      27        34        60        81        76       137        122
##  2 Atheist       12        27        37        52        35        70         73
##  3 Buddhist      27        21        30        34        33        58         62
##  4 Catholic     418       617       732       670       638      1116        949
##  5 Don’t k…      15        14        15        11        10        35         21
##  6 Evangel…     575       869      1064       982       881      1486        949
##  7 Hindu          1         9         7         9        11        34         47
##  8 Histori…     228       244       236       238       197       223        131
##  9 Jehovah…      20        27        24        24        21        30         15
## 10 Jewish        19        19        25        25        30        95         69
## 11 Mainlin…     289       495       619       655       651      1107        939
## 12 Mormon        29        40        48        51        56       112         85
## 13 Muslim         6         7         9        10         9        23         16
## 14 Orthodox      13        17        23        32        32        47         38
## 15 Other C…       9         7        11        13        13        14         18
## 16 Other F…      20        33        40        46        49        63         46
## 17 Other W…       5         2         3         4         2         7          3
## 18 Unaffil…     217       299       374       365       341       528        407
## # ℹ 3 more variables: `$100-150k` <dbl>, `>150k` <dbl>,
## #   `Don't know/refused` <dbl>

We would like to reshape this dataset to have 3 columns: religion, count, and income. The column “religion” doesn’t need to change, so we exclude it with -religion. Then, each remaining column corresponds to an income category. Therefore, we want to move all these column names to a single column called “income”. Finally, the values corresponding to each of these columns will be reshaped to be in a single new column, called “count”.

# ---------- datawizard -----------
relig_income %>%
  data_to_long(
    -religion,
    names_to = "income",
    values_to = "count"
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
relig_income %>%
  pivot_longer(
    !religion,
    names_to = "income",
    values_to = "count"
  )
## # A tibble: 180 × 3
##    religion income             count
##    <chr>    <chr>              <dbl>
##  1 Agnostic <$10k                 27
##  2 Agnostic $10-20k               34
##  3 Agnostic $20-30k               60
##  4 Agnostic $30-40k               81
##  5 Agnostic $40-50k               76
##  6 Agnostic $50-75k              137
##  7 Agnostic $75-100k             122
##  8 Agnostic $100-150k            109
##  9 Agnostic >150k                 84
## 10 Agnostic Don't know/refused    96
## # ℹ 170 more rows

To explore a bit more the arguments of data_to_long(), we will use another dataset: the billboard dataset.

billboard
## # A tibble: 317 × 79
##    artist     track date.entered   wk1   wk2   wk3   wk4   wk5   wk6   wk7   wk8
##    <chr>      <chr> <date>       <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
##  1 2 Pac      Baby… 2000-02-26      87    82    72    77    87    94    99    NA
##  2 2Ge+her    The … 2000-09-02      91    87    92    NA    NA    NA    NA    NA
##  3 3 Doors D… Kryp… 2000-04-08      81    70    68    67    66    57    54    53
##  4 3 Doors D… Loser 2000-10-21      76    76    72    69    67    65    55    59
##  5 504 Boyz   Wobb… 2000-04-15      57    34    25    17    17    31    36    49
##  6 98^0       Give… 2000-08-19      51    39    34    26    26    19     2     2
##  7 A*Teens    Danc… 2000-07-08      97    97    96    95   100    NA    NA    NA
##  8 Aaliyah    I Do… 2000-01-29      84    62    51    41    38    35    35    38
##  9 Aaliyah    Try … 2000-03-18      59    53    38    28    21    18    16    14
## 10 Adams, Yo… Open… 2000-08-26      76    76    74    69    68    67    61    58
## # ℹ 307 more rows
## # ℹ 68 more variables: wk9 <dbl>, wk10 <dbl>, wk11 <dbl>, wk12 <dbl>,
## #   wk13 <dbl>, wk14 <dbl>, wk15 <dbl>, wk16 <dbl>, wk17 <dbl>, wk18 <dbl>,
## #   wk19 <dbl>, wk20 <dbl>, wk21 <dbl>, wk22 <dbl>, wk23 <dbl>, wk24 <dbl>,
## #   wk25 <dbl>, wk26 <dbl>, wk27 <dbl>, wk28 <dbl>, wk29 <dbl>, wk30 <dbl>,
## #   wk31 <dbl>, wk32 <dbl>, wk33 <dbl>, wk34 <dbl>, wk35 <dbl>, wk36 <dbl>,
## #   wk37 <dbl>, wk38 <dbl>, wk39 <dbl>, wk40 <dbl>, wk41 <dbl>, wk42 <dbl>, …
# ---------- datawizard -----------
billboard %>%
  data_to_long(
    cols = starts_with("wk"),
    names_to = "week",
    values_to = "rank",
    values_drop_na = TRUE
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
billboard %>%
  pivot_longer(
    cols = starts_with("wk"),
    names_to = "week",
    values_to = "rank",
    values_drop_na = TRUE
  )
## # A tibble: 5,307 × 5
##    artist  track                   date.entered week   rank
##    <chr>   <chr>                   <date>       <chr> <dbl>
##  1 2 Pac   Baby Don't Cry (Keep... 2000-02-26   wk1      87
##  2 2 Pac   Baby Don't Cry (Keep... 2000-02-26   wk2      82
##  3 2 Pac   Baby Don't Cry (Keep... 2000-02-26   wk3      72
##  4 2 Pac   Baby Don't Cry (Keep... 2000-02-26   wk4      77
##  5 2 Pac   Baby Don't Cry (Keep... 2000-02-26   wk5      87
##  6 2 Pac   Baby Don't Cry (Keep... 2000-02-26   wk6      94
##  7 2 Pac   Baby Don't Cry (Keep... 2000-02-26   wk7      99
##  8 2Ge+her The Hardest Part Of ... 2000-09-02   wk1      91
##  9 2Ge+her The Hardest Part Of ... 2000-09-02   wk2      87
## 10 2Ge+her The Hardest Part Of ... 2000-09-02   wk3      92
## # ℹ 5,297 more rows

Wider

Once again, we use an example in the tidyr vignette to show how close data_to_wide() and pivot_wider() are:

fish_encounters
## # A tibble: 114 × 3
##    fish  station  seen
##    <fct> <fct>   <int>
##  1 4842  Release     1
##  2 4842  I80_1       1
##  3 4842  Lisbon      1
##  4 4842  Rstr        1
##  5 4842  Base_TD     1
##  6 4842  BCE         1
##  7 4842  BCW         1
##  8 4842  BCE2        1
##  9 4842  BCW2        1
## 10 4842  MAE         1
## # ℹ 104 more rows
# ---------- datawizard -----------
fish_encounters %>%
  data_to_wide(
    names_from = "station",
    values_from = "seen",
    values_fill = 0
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
fish_encounters %>%
  pivot_wider(
    names_from = station,
    values_from = seen,
    values_fill = 0
  )
## # A tibble: 19 × 12
##    fish  Release I80_1 Lisbon  Rstr Base_TD   BCE   BCW  BCE2  BCW2   MAE   MAW
##    <fct>   <dbl> <dbl>  <dbl> <dbl>   <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
##  1 4842        1     1      1     1       1     1     1     1     1     1     1
##  2 4843        1     1      1     1       1     1     1     1     1     1     1
##  3 4844        1     1      1     1       1     1     1     1     1     1     1
##  4 4845        1     1      1     1       1     0     0     0     0     0     0
##  5 4847        1     1      1     0       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
##  6 4848        1     1      1     1       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
##  7 4849        1     1      0     0       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
##  8 4850        1     1      0     1       1     1     1     0     0     0     0
##  9 4851        1     1      0     0       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
## 10 4854        1     1      0     0       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
## 11 4855        1     1      1     1       1     0     0     0     0     0     0
## 12 4857        1     1      1     1       1     1     1     1     1     0     0
## 13 4858        1     1      1     1       1     1     1     1     1     1     1
## 14 4859        1     1      1     1       1     0     0     0     0     0     0
## 15 4861        1     1      1     1       1     1     1     1     1     1     1
## 16 4862        1     1      1     1       1     1     1     1     1     0     0
## 17 4863        1     1      0     0       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
## 18 4864        1     1      0     0       0     0     0     0     0     0     0
## 19 4865        1     1      1     0       0     0     0     0     0     0     0

Joining

In datawizard, joining datasets is done with data_join() (or its alias data_merge()). Contrary to dplyr, this unique function takes care of all types of join, which are then specified inside the function with the argument join (by default, join = "left").

Below, we show how to perform the four most common joins: full, left, right and inner. We will use the datasets band_membersand band_instruments provided by dplyr:

band_members
## # A tibble: 3 × 2
##   name  band   
##   <chr> <chr>  
## 1 Mick  Stones 
## 2 John  Beatles
## 3 Paul  Beatles
band_instruments
## # A tibble: 3 × 2
##   name  plays 
##   <chr> <chr> 
## 1 John  guitar
## 2 Paul  bass  
## 3 Keith guitar

Full join

# ---------- datawizard -----------
band_members %>%
  data_join(band_instruments, join = "full")
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
band_members %>%
  full_join(band_instruments)
## # A tibble: 4 × 3
##   name  band    plays 
## * <chr> <chr>   <chr> 
## 1 Mick  Stones  NA    
## 2 John  Beatles guitar
## 3 Paul  Beatles bass  
## 4 Keith NA      guitar

Left and right joins

# ---------- datawizard -----------
band_members %>%
  data_join(band_instruments, join = "left")
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
band_members %>%
  left_join(band_instruments)
## # A tibble: 3 × 3
##   name  band    plays 
## * <chr> <chr>   <chr> 
## 1 Mick  Stones  NA    
## 2 John  Beatles guitar
## 3 Paul  Beatles bass
# ---------- datawizard -----------
band_members %>%
  data_join(band_instruments, join = "right")
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
band_members %>%
  right_join(band_instruments)
## # A tibble: 3 × 3
##   name  band    plays 
## * <chr> <chr>   <chr> 
## 1 John  Beatles guitar
## 2 Paul  Beatles bass  
## 3 Keith NA      guitar

Inner join

# ---------- datawizard -----------
band_members %>%
  data_join(band_instruments, join = "inner")
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
band_members %>%
  inner_join(band_instruments)
## # A tibble: 2 × 3
##   name  band    plays 
## * <chr> <chr>   <chr> 
## 1 John  Beatles guitar
## 2 Paul  Beatles bass

Uniting

Uniting variables is useful e.g to create unique indices by combining several variables or to gather years, months, and days into a single date. data_unite() offers an interface very close to tidyr::unite():

test <- data.frame(
  year = 2002:2004,
  month = c("02", "03", "09"),
  day = c("11", "22", "28"),
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)
test
##   year month day
## 1 2002    02  11
## 2 2003    03  22
## 3 2004    09  28
# ---------- datawizard -----------
test %>%
  data_unite(
    new_column = "date",
    select = c("year", "month", "day"),
    separator = "-"
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
test %>%
  unite(
    col = "date",
    year, month, day,
    sep = "-"
  )
##         date
## 1 2002-02-11
## 2 2003-03-22
## 3 2004-09-28
# ---------- datawizard -----------
test %>%
  data_unite(
    new_column = "date",
    select = c("year", "month", "day"),
    separator = "-",
    append = TRUE
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
test %>%
  unite(
    col = "date",
    year, month, day,
    sep = "-",
    remove = FALSE
  )
##   year month day       date
## 1 2002    02  11 2002-02-11
## 2 2003    03  22 2003-03-22
## 3 2004    09  28 2004-09-28

Separating

Separating variables is the counterpart to uniting variables and is useful to split values into multiple columns, e.g. when splitting a date into values for years, months and days. data_separate() offers an interface very close to tidyr::separate():

test <- data.frame(
  date_arrival = c("2002-02-11", "2003-03-22", "2004-09-28"),
  date_departure = c("2002-03-15", "2003-03-28", "2004-09-30"),
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)
test
##   date_arrival date_departure
## 1   2002-02-11     2002-03-15
## 2   2003-03-22     2003-03-28
## 3   2004-09-28     2004-09-30
# ---------- datawizard -----------
test %>%
  data_separate(
    select = "date_arrival",
    new_columns = c("Year", "Month", "Day")
  )
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
test %>%
  separate(
    date_arrival,
    into = c("Year", "Month", "Day")
  )
##   date_departure Year Month Day
## 1     2002-03-15 2002    02  11
## 2     2003-03-28 2003    03  22
## 3     2004-09-30 2004    09  28

Unlike tidyr::separate(), you can separate multiple columns in one step with data_separate().

test %>%
  data_separate(
    new_columns = list(
      date_arrival = c("Arr_Year", "Arr_Month", "Arr_Day"),
      date_departure = c("Dep_Year", "Dep_Month", "Dep_Day")
    )
  )
##   Arr_Year Arr_Month Arr_Day Dep_Year Dep_Month Dep_Day
## 1     2002        02      11     2002        03      15
## 2     2003        03      22     2003        03      28
## 3     2004        09      28     2004        09      30

Other useful functions

datawizard contains other functions that are not necessarily included in dplyr or tidyr or do not directly modify the data. Some of them are inspired from the package janitor.

Work with rownames

We can convert a column in rownames and move rownames to a new column with rownames_as_column() and column_as_rownames():

mtcars <- head(mtcars)
mtcars
##                    mpg cyl disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
## Mazda RX4         21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
## Mazda RX4 Wag     21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
## Datsun 710        22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
## Hornet 4 Drive    21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
## Hornet Sportabout 18.7   8  360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02  0  0    3    2
## Valiant           18.1   6  225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22  1  0    3    1
mtcars2 <- mtcars %>%
  rownames_as_column(var = "model")

mtcars2
##               model  mpg cyl disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
## 1         Mazda RX4 21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
## 2     Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
## 3        Datsun 710 22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
## 4    Hornet 4 Drive 21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
## 5 Hornet Sportabout 18.7   8  360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02  0  0    3    2
## 6           Valiant 18.1   6  225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22  1  0    3    1
mtcars2 %>%
  column_as_rownames(var = "model")
##                    mpg cyl disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
## Mazda RX4         21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
## Mazda RX4 Wag     21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
## Datsun 710        22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
## Hornet 4 Drive    21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
## Hornet Sportabout 18.7   8  360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02  0  0    3    2
## Valiant           18.1   6  225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22  1  0    3    1

Work with row ids

rowid_as_column() is close but not identical to tibble::rowid_to_column(). The main difference is when we use it with grouped data. While tibble::rowid_to_column() uses one distinct rowid for every row in the dataset, rowid_as_column() creates one id for every row in each group. Therefore, two rows in different groups can have the same row id.

This means that rowid_as_column() is closer to using n() in mutate(), like the following:

test <- data.frame(
  group = c("A", "A", "B", "B"),
  value = c(3, 5, 8, 1),
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)
test
##   group value
## 1     A     3
## 2     A     5
## 3     B     8
## 4     B     1
test %>%
  data_group(group) %>%
  tibble::rowid_to_column()
##   rowid group value
## 1     1     A     3
## 2     2     A     5
## 3     3     B     8
## 4     4     B     1
## # A tibble: 4 × 3
## # Groups:   group [2]
##   rowid group value
##   <int> <chr> <dbl>
## 1     1 A         3
## 2     2 A         5
## 3     1 B         8
## 4     2 B         1
test %>%
  data_group(group) %>%
  mutate(id = seq_len(n()))
## # A tibble: 4 × 3
## # Groups:   group [2]
##   group value    id
##   <chr> <dbl> <int>
## 1 A         3     1
## 2 A         5     2
## 3 B         8     1
## 4 B         1     2

Work with column names

When dealing with messy data, it is sometimes useful to use a row as column names, and vice versa. This can be done with row_to_colnames() and colnames_to_row().

x <- data.frame(
  X_1 = c(NA, "Title", 1:3),
  X_2 = c(NA, "Title2", 4:6)
)
x
##     X_1    X_2
## 1  <NA>   <NA>
## 2 Title Title2
## 3     1      4
## 4     2      5
## 5     3      6
x2 <- x %>%
  row_to_colnames(row = 2)
x2
##   Title Title2
## 1  <NA>   <NA>
## 3     1      4
## 4     2      5
## 5     3      6
##       x1     x2
## 1  Title Title2
## 11  <NA>   <NA>
## 3      1      4
## 4      2      5
## 5      3      6

Take a quick look at the data

# ---------- datawizard -----------
data_peek(iris)
# ---------- tidyverse -----------
glimpse(iris)
## Data frame with 150 rows and 5 variables
## 
## Variable     | Type    | Values                                        
## -----------------------------------------------------------------------
## Sepal.Length | numeric | 5.1, 4.9, 4.7, 4.6, 5, 5.4, 4.6, 5, 4.4, ...  
## Sepal.Width  | numeric | 3.5, 3, 3.2, 3.1, 3.6, 3.9, 3.4, 3.4, 2.9, ...
## Petal.Length | numeric | 1.4, 1.4, 1.3, 1.5, 1.4, 1.7, 1.4, 1.5, ...   
## Petal.Width  | numeric | 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, ...   
## Species      | factor  | setosa, setosa, setosa, setosa, setosa, ...