Create a Template for Variable Types

This function generates a data frame that summarizes the types and labels of the variables in a given data frame. It optionally saves this summary to a CSV file.

Usage

CreateVariableTypesTemplate(
  DataFrame,
  CSVFileName = NULL,
  GuessCategorical = TRUE
)

Arguments

DataFrame

A data frame containing the variables to be summarized.

CSVFileName

A string specifying the path and name of the CSV file to save the summary. If NULL (the default), the CSV file will not be created.

GuessCategorical

A logical variable specifying if the function should guess what variables are categorical based on having <= 5 unique values

Value

A data frame with the following columns:

Variable

The names of the variables in the input data frame.

Label

The labels of the variables, if available; otherwise, the variable names.

Type

The data types of the variables, converted to more user-friendly descriptions.

Category

A placeholder column for categorizing variables (default is NA).

Recode

A placeholder column for recoding information (default is NA).

Code

A placeholder column for code information (default is NA).

Notes

A placeholder column for any additional notes (default is an empty string).

Exclude

A placeholder column for exclusion flags (default is NA).

Examples

df <- data.frame(
  num = c(1.1, 2.2),
  int = c(1L, 2L),
  fact = factor(c("A", "B")),
  char = c("a", "b"),
  date = as.Date(c("2021-01-01", "2021-01-02"))
)
CreateVariableTypesTemplate(df)
#>      Variable Label        Type Category Recode Code Notes Exclude MissingCode
#> num       num   num Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> int       int   int Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> fact     fact  fact Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> char     char  char Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> date     date  date Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
CreateVariableTypesTemplate(df, "variable_types.csv")
#>      Variable Label        Type Category Recode Code Notes Exclude MissingCode
#> num       num   num Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> int       int   int Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> fact     fact  fact Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> char     char  char Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA            
#> date     date  date Categorical       NA     NA   NA            NA