DesiQuintans / tsv2label

tsv2label: Label, describe, rename, and recode datasets using a data dictionary
Other
2 stars 0 forks source link

Should factor files allow any column name and rely on column position instead? #6

Closed DesiQuintans closed 11 months ago

DesiQuintans commented 1 year ago

When copy/pasting from different sources, they of course never name their mapping tables "levels" and "labels". They name them more sensible things like "Code/Description" or "Name/Meaning" or whatever. Having to change the names is an extra task that can be skipped by enforcing factor files to have the levels in Column 1, and the Labels in Column 2.

DesiQuintans commented 11 months ago

I have decided against this because in my own real-world use of the package, I have sometimes made large mapping spreadsheets --- for example, a spreadsheet that maps postcodes to the LGA/LHD/catchment etc. that they belong to. It is natural to have all of this "raw" data to the left, and then when I want to use one of those mapping pairs (e.g. my project needs me to map postcodes to LHDs), then I just copy those two columns to the end of the spreadsheet and rename them.