NOTE: This is a toy package created for expository purposes. It is not meant to actually be useful. If you want a package for factor handling, please see forcats.

I'm trying to fix Error: 'rcmd_safe_env' is not an exported object from 'namespace:callr'

Refresher: when a character is converted into a factor, levels are ordered by defaul unless specified. Levels are unique categorical values, therefore, if the vector has already unique categorical values, it does not need to be converted into a factor and can remain as character. the two function i wrote will help you assess whether a vector should be character of factor, and to return a vector with unordered levels.

foofactors

Factors are a very useful type of variable in R, but they can also drive you nuts. This package provides some helper functions for the care and feeding of factors.

Installation

devtools::install_github("jennybc/foofactors")

Quick demo

Binding two factors via fbind():

library(foofactors)
a <- factor(c("character", "hits", "your", "eyeballs"))
b <- factor(c("but", "integer", "where it", "counts"))

Simply catenating two factors leads to a result that most don't expect.

c(a, b)
#> [1] 1 3 4 2 1 3 4 2

The fbind() function glues two factors together and returns factor.

fbind(a, b)
#> [1] character hits      your      eyeballs  but       integer   where it 
#> [8] counts   
#> Levels: but character counts eyeballs hits integer where it your

Often we want a table of frequencies for the levels of a factor. The base table() function returns an object of class table, which can be inconvenient for downstream work. Processing with as.data.frame() can be helpful but it's a bit clunky.

set.seed(1234)
x <- factor(sample(letters[1:5], size = 100, replace = TRUE))
table(x)
#> x
#>  a  b  c  d  e 
#> 25 26 17 17 15
as.data.frame(table(x))
#>   x Freq
#> 1 a   25
#> 2 b   26
#> 3 c   17
#> 4 d   17
#> 5 e   15

The freq_out() function returns a frequency table as a well-named tbl_df:

freq_out(x)
#> # A tibble: 5 x 2
#>        x     n
#>   <fctr> <int>
#> 1      a    25
#> 2      b    26
#> 3      c    17
#> 4      d    17
#> 5      e    15

as is levels

as is levels returns a factor with levels in their original order

Example: ***regular factor ***

pollo <- c("rooster", "chicken", "hen")
factor(pollo)
#> [1] rooster chicken hen    
#> Levels: chicken hen rooster

levels as is

as_is_levels<- function (x) {
                factor(x, levels= unique(x))}
  
as_is_levels(pollo)
#> [1] rooster chicken hen    
#> Levels: rooster chicken hen

Character or factor

character or factor compares the lenght of levels with the leght of the factor, if equal, it suggest it should be character, if not, factor.

Example: repeated levels

pollos<- c("gallo", "gallo", "pollito", "gallina", "pollito")
char_not_fact(pollos)
#> [1] "it should be a factor"

*** unique levels ***

char_not_fact<- function (x) {f<- as_is_levels(x)
if (length(f)== length(unique(levels(f)))) {
  return("that should be character")}

else {return("it should be a factor")
}
}
pollo <- c("rooster", "chicken", "hen")
char_not_fact(pollo)
#> [1] "that should be character"