mkearney / attrbl

A tidy approach to attributes

attrbl

A tibble-like package for working with attributes and data frames.

Warning: this package is in early development

Install

Install the dev version from Github

if (!requireNamespace("devtools", quietly = TRUE)) {
  install.packages("devtools")
}
devtools::install_github("mkearney/attrbl")

Use case

Let's say you have a list of two data frames. And each data frame contains a data frame attribute "users" with around 100 observations.

## tweets data with users data attribute
rts <- list(
  rtweet::search_tweets("statistics", verbose = FALSE),
  rtweet::search_tweets("data science", verbose = FALSE))

## each object contains "users" data attribute with around 100 rows
rts %>%
  lapply(rtweet::users_data) %>%
  lapply(nrow)

#> [[1]]
#> [1] 100
#> 
#> [[2]]
#> [1] 90

When you bind the data frames using do.call(..., rbind), it returns a "users" attribute. But it only has around 100 rows (it should be closer to 200). It completely drops the second "users" attribute!

## base R's method
rts %>%
  do.call("rbind", .) %>%
  attr("users") %>%
  nrow()

#> [1] 100

When you bind the data frames using dplyr::bind_rows(...), it doesn't return a "users" attribute at all!

## dplyr's bind_rows method
rts %>%
  dplyr::bind_rows() %>%
  attr("users")

#> NULL

But when you bind the data frames using attrbl::do_call_rbind(...), it not only keeps all "users" attributes. It binds them together for you!

## attrbl's do_call_rbind method
rts %>%
  lapply(as_attrbl) %>%
  do_call_rbind() %>%
  attr("users") %>%
  nrow()

#> [1] 190

Usage

Bind data frames without losing attributes

When a data.frame is merged with dplyr::bind_rows(...), it loses its attribute(s).

## list of data frames
mtcars2 <- list(mtcars, mtcars)

## dplyr method
mtcars2 %>%
  dplyr::bind_rows() %>%
  attr("row.names")

#>  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
#> [24] 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46
#> [47] 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

When an attrbl is merged with attrbl::do_call_rbind, it keeps its attribute(s).

## attrbl method
mtcars2 %>%
  lapply(as_attrbl) %>%
  do_call_rbind() %>%
  attr("row.names")

#>  [1] "Mazda RX4"           "Mazda RX4 Wag"       "Datsun 710"         
#>  [4] "Hornet 4 Drive"      "Hornet Sportabout"   "Valiant"            
#>  [7] "Duster 360"          "Merc 240D"           "Merc 230"           
#> [10] "Merc 280"            "Merc 280C"           "Merc 450SE"         
#> [13] "Merc 450SL"          "Merc 450SLC"         "Cadillac Fleetwood" 
#> [16] "Lincoln Continental" "Chrysler Imperial"   "Fiat 128"           
#> [19] "Honda Civic"         "Toyota Corolla"      "Toyota Corona"      
#> [22] "Dodge Challenger"    "AMC Javelin"         "Camaro Z28"         
#> [25] "Pontiac Firebird"    "Fiat X1-9"           "Porsche 914-2"      
#> [28] "Lotus Europa"        "Ford Pantera L"      "Ferrari Dino"       
#> [31] "Maserati Bora"       "Volvo 142E"          "Mazda RX4"          
#> [34] "Mazda RX4 Wag"       "Datsun 710"          "Hornet 4 Drive"     
#> [37] "Hornet Sportabout"   "Valiant"             "Duster 360"         
#> [40] "Merc 240D"           "Merc 230"            "Merc 280"           
#> [43] "Merc 280C"           "Merc 450SE"          "Merc 450SL"         
#> [46] "Merc 450SLC"         "Cadillac Fleetwood"  "Lincoln Continental"
#> [49] "Chrysler Imperial"   "Fiat 128"            "Honda Civic"        
#> [52] "Toyota Corolla"      "Toyota Corona"       "Dodge Challenger"   
#> [55] "AMC Javelin"         "Camaro Z28"          "Pontiac Firebird"   
#> [58] "Fiat X1-9"           "Porsche 914-2"       "Lotus Europa"       
#> [61] "Ford Pantera L"      "Ferrari Dino"        "Maserati Bora"      
#> [64] "Volvo 142E"

Select attributes with atselect

Use atselect to select attributes the tidy way (no quotes required).

atselect(mtcars, row.names, class)

#> $row.names
#>  [1] "Mazda RX4"           "Mazda RX4 Wag"       "Datsun 710"         
#>  [4] "Hornet 4 Drive"      "Hornet Sportabout"   "Valiant"            
#>  [7] "Duster 360"          "Merc 240D"           "Merc 230"           
#> [10] "Merc 280"            "Merc 280C"           "Merc 450SE"         
#> [13] "Merc 450SL"          "Merc 450SLC"         "Cadillac Fleetwood" 
#> [16] "Lincoln Continental" "Chrysler Imperial"   "Fiat 128"           
#> [19] "Honda Civic"         "Toyota Corolla"      "Toyota Corona"      
#> [22] "Dodge Challenger"    "AMC Javelin"         "Camaro Z28"         
#> [25] "Pontiac Firebird"    "Fiat X1-9"           "Porsche 914-2"      
#> [28] "Lotus Europa"        "Ford Pantera L"      "Ferrari Dino"       
#> [31] "Maserati Bora"       "Volvo 142E"         
#> 
#> $class
#> [1] "data.frame"

Add attributes with add_attr

Use add_attr to add one or more attributes to a data frame.

mtcars %>%
  add_attr(seed = quote(set.seed(1234)), timestamp = Sys.time()) %>%
  attributes()

#> $names
#>  [1] "mpg"  "cyl"  "disp" "hp"   "drat" "wt"   "qsec" "vs"   "am"   "gear"
#> [11] "carb"
#> 
#> $row.names
#>  [1] "Mazda RX4"           "Mazda RX4 Wag"       "Datsun 710"         
#>  [4] "Hornet 4 Drive"      "Hornet Sportabout"   "Valiant"            
#>  [7] "Duster 360"          "Merc 240D"           "Merc 230"           
#> [10] "Merc 280"            "Merc 280C"           "Merc 450SE"         
#> [13] "Merc 450SL"          "Merc 450SLC"         "Cadillac Fleetwood" 
#> [16] "Lincoln Continental" "Chrysler Imperial"   "Fiat 128"           
#> [19] "Honda Civic"         "Toyota Corolla"      "Toyota Corona"      
#> [22] "Dodge Challenger"    "AMC Javelin"         "Camaro Z28"         
#> [25] "Pontiac Firebird"    "Fiat X1-9"           "Porsche 914-2"      
#> [28] "Lotus Europa"        "Ford Pantera L"      "Ferrari Dino"       
#> [31] "Maserati Bora"       "Volvo 142E"         
#> 
#> $class
#> [1] "attrbl"     "tbl_df"     "data.frame"
#> 
#> $seed
#> set.seed(1234)
#> 
#> $timestamp
#> [1] "2018-02-21 18:05:55 CST"