[R] [R Code] Split long names in format.ftable

[Leonard Mada]

Dear List members,


I have uploaded an improved version on Github:
- new option: align top vs bottom;

Functions:
split.names: splits and aligns the names;
merge.align: aligns 2 string matrices;
ftable2: enhanced version of format.ftable (proof of concept);
see:
https://github.com/discoleo/R/blob/master/Stat/Tools.Data.R


It makes sense to have such functionality in base R as well: it may be 
useful in various locations to format character output.


Sincerely,


Leonard


On 9/14/2021 8:18 PM, Leonard Mada wrote:
> Dear List members,
>
>
> I wrote some code to split long names in format.ftable. I hope it will 
> be useful to others as well.
>
>
> Ideally, this code should be implemented natively in R. I will provide 
> in the 2nd part of the mail a concept how to actually implement the 
> code in R. This may be interesting to R-devel as well.
>
>
> ### Helper function
>
> # Split the actual names
>
> split.names = function(names, extend=0, justify="Right", 
> blank.rm=FALSE, split.ch = "\n", detailed=TRUE) {
>     justify = if(is.null(justify)) 0 else pmatch(justify, c("Left", 
> "Right"));
>     str = strsplit(names, split.ch);
>     if(blank.rm) str = lapply(str, function(s) s[nchar(s) > 0]);
>     nr  = max(sapply(str, function(s) length(s)));
>     nch = lapply(str, function(s) max(nchar(s)));
>     chf = function(nch) paste0(rep(" ", nch), collapse="");
>     ch0 = sapply(nch, chf);
>     mx  = matrix(rep(ch0, each=nr), nrow=nr, ncol=length(names));
>     for(nc in seq(length(names))) {
>         n = length(str[[nc]]);
>         # Justifying
>         s = sapply(seq(n), function(nr) paste0(rep(" ", nch[[nc]] - 
> nchar(str[[nc]][nr])), collapse=""));
>         s = if(justify == 2) paste0(s, str[[nc]]) else 
> paste0(str[[nc]], s);
>         mx[seq(nr + 1 - length(str[[nc]]), nr) , nc] = s;
>     }
>     if(extend > 0) {
>         mx = cbind(mx, matrix("", nr=nr, ncol=extend));
>     }
>     if(detailed) attr(mx, "nchar") = unlist(nch);
>     return(mx);
> }
>
> ### ftable with name splitting
> # - this code should be ideally integrated inside format.ftable;
> ftable2 = function(ftbl, print=TRUE, quote=FALSE, ...) {
>     ftbl2 = format(ftbl, quote=quote, ...);
>     row.vars = names(attr(ftbl, "row.vars"))
>     nr = length(row.vars);
>     nms = split.names(row.vars, extend = ncol(ftbl2) - nr);
>     ftbl2 = rbind(ftbl2[1,], nms, ftbl2[-c(1,2),]);
>     # TODO: update width of factor labels;
>     # - new width available in attr(nms, "nchar");
>     if(print) {
>         cat(t(ftbl2), sep = c(rep(" ", ncol(ftbl2) - 1), "\n"))
>     }
>     invisible(ftbl2);
> }
>
> I have uploaded this code also on Github:
>
> https://github.com/discoleo/R/blob/master/Stat/Tools.Data.R
>
>
> B.) Detailed Concept
> # - I am ignoring any variants;
> # - the splitting is actually done in format.ftable;
> # - we set only an attribute in ftable;
> ftable = function(..., split.ch="\n") {
>    [...]
>    attr(ftbl, "split.ch") = split.ch; # set an attribute "split.ch"
>    return(ftbl);
> }
>
> format.ftable(ftbl, ..., split.ch) {
> if(is.missing(split.ch)) {
>    # check if the split.ch attribute is set and use it;
> } else {
>    # use the explicitly provided split.ch: if( ! is.null(split.ch))
> }
>    [...]
> }
>
>
> C.) split.names Function
>
> This function may be useful in other locations as well, particularly 
> to split names/labels used in axes and legends in various plots. But I 
> do not have much knowledge of the graphics engine in R.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Leonard
>
>