Normalizing verbose messages in bmerge.R

[rikivillalba]

Hello. These are a some observations in verbose messages in bmerge.R I wish to share.

• Some fragmented messages i.e. a " (which contains no fractions)" could be unified.
• The class/data types are parameterized arguments in some cases or have been harcoded in others, leading to inconsistency if someone uses to translate the data types.
• Hope if we parameterize some message the number of translatable strings may be reduced in two or three lines!

Here is the code with example proposals:

@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ bmerge = function(i, x, icols, xcols, roll, rollends, nomatch, mult, ops, verbos
         next
       } else {
         if (xclass=="character") {
-          if (verbose) catf("Coercing factor column %s to type character to match type of %s.\n", iname, xname)
+          if (verbose) catf("Coercing %s column %s to type %s to match type of %s.\n", "factor", iname, "character", xname)
           set(i, j=ic, value=val<-as.character(i[[ic]]))
           set(callersi, j=ic, value=val)  # factor in i joining to character in x will return character and not keep x's factor; e.g. for antaresRead #3581
           next
@@ -93,26 +93,30 @@ bmerge = function(i, x, icols, xcols, roll, rollends, nomatch, mult, ops, verbos
       nm = c(iname, xname)
       if (xclass=="integer64") { w=i; wc=ic; wclass=iclass; } else { w=x; wc=xc; wclass=xclass; nm=rev(nm) }  # w is which to coerce
       if (wclass=="integer" || (wclass=="double" && !isReallyReal(w[[wc]]))) {
-        if (verbose) catf("Coercing %s column %s%s to type integer64 to match type of %s.\n", wclass, nm[1L], if (wclass=="double") " (which contains no fractions)" else "", nm[2L])
+        if (verbose)
+          if (wclass=="double")
+            catf("Coercing %s column %s (which contains no fractions) to type %s to match type of %s.\n", wclass, nm[1L], "integer64", nm[2L])
+          else
+            catf("Coercing %s column %s to type %s to match type of %s.\n", wclass, nm[1L], "integer64", nm[2L])
         set(w, j=wc, value=bit64::as.integer64(w[[wc]]))
-      } else stopf("Incompatible join types: %s is type integer64 but %s is type double and contains fractions", nm[2L], nm[1L])
+      } else stopf("Incompatible join types: %s is type %s but %s is type %s and contains fractions", nm[2L], "integer64", nm[1L], "double")
     } else {
       # just integer and double left
       if (iclass=="double") {
         if (!isReallyReal(i[[ic]])) {
           # common case of ad hoc user-typed integers missing L postfix joining to correct integer keys
           # we've always coerced to int and returned int, for convenience.
-          if (verbose) catf("Coercing double column %s (which contains no fractions) to type integer to match type of %s.\n", iname, xname)
+          if (verbose) catf("Coercing %s column %s (which contains no fractions) to type %s to match type of %s.\n", iclass, iname, "integer", xname)
           val = as.integer(i[[ic]])
           if (!is.null(attributes(i[[ic]]))) attributes(val) = attributes(i[[ic]])  # to retain Date for example; 3679
           set(i, j=ic, value=val)
           set(callersi, j=ic, value=val)       # change the shallow copy of i up in [.data.table to reflect in the result, too.
         } else {
-          if (verbose) catf("Coercing integer column %s to type double to match type of %s which contains fractions.\n", xname, iname)
+          if (verbose) catf("Coercing %s column %s to type %s to match type of %s which contains fractions.\n", xclass, xname, "double", iname)
           set(x, j=xc, value=as.double(x[[xc]]))
         }
       } else {
-        if (verbose) catf("Coercing integer column %s to type double for join to match type of %s.\n", iname, xname)
+        if (verbose) catf("Coercing %s column %s to type %s for join to match type of %s.\n", iclass, iname, "double", xname)
         set(i, j=ic, value=as.double(i[[ic]]))
       }
     }

[aitap]

If leaving, e.g., factor and double untranslated, perhaps it might be better to use "Coercing '%s' column %s to type '%s' to match type of %s.\n", with extra quotes. Otherwise it might look a bit jarring in languages with non-Latin scripts.