Submission: NiceNumbERRR (R)

name: NiceNumbERRR about: This R package provides basic functions that make numbers display nicely.

Submitting Author: Cameron Harris (@camharris22)

Other Authors:

Guanshu Tao (@GuanshuTao)
Jayme Gordon (@jaymegordo)
Zhiyong Wang (@wiwang)

Repository: NiceNumbERRR Version submitted: v0.3.0 Editor: TBD Reviewers:

@Saule-Atymtayeva
@nichowu

Archive: TBD Version accepted: TBD

Package: NiceNumbERRR
Title: What the Package Does (One Line, Title Case)
Version: 0.0.0.9000
Authors@R: 
    person(given = "Jayme",
           family = "Gordon",
           role = c("aut", "cre"),
           email = "jaymegordo@gmail.com")
    person(given = "Cameron",
           family = "Harris",
           role = c("aut", "cre"),
           email = "camharris22@gmail.com")
    person(given = "Guanshu",
           family = "Tao",
           role = c("aut", "cre"),
           email = "guanshu@ualberta.ca")
    person(given = "Zhiyong",
           family = "Wang",
           role = c("aut", "cre"),
           email = "william.calix.cn@gmail.com")
Description: This R package provides basic functions that make numbers display nicely. 
             In most real-world problems, the datasets are raw and we need to deal with 
             number formats to make them readable for humans or for computers. 
             Usually, a few or more lines of coding are needed while dealing with 
             number-display problems so we are thinking of compressing the time and 
             programming work on this issue. This package solves this kind of 
             problems in a way of transfer forward and backward from long digit 
             numbers to human-readable ones. There are functions doing single 
             number transactions, column transactions from a pandas data frame, 
             and displaying colors of input numbers.
License: MIT + file LICENSE
Encoding: UTF-8
LazyData: true
Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
RoxygenNote: 7.1.1
Suggests: 
    testthat (>= 3.0.0),
    covr,
    stringr,
    knitr,
    rmarkdown
Config/testthat/edition: 3
VignetteBuilder: knitr
Depends: 
    tidyverse

Scope

Please indicate which category or categories from our package fit policies this package falls under: (Please check an appropriate box below. If you are unsure, we suggest you make a pre-submission inquiry.):
- [ ] data retrieval
- [ ] data extraction
- [x] data munging
- [ ] data deposition
- [ ] workflow automation
- [ ] version control
- [ ] citation management and bibliometrics
- [ ] scientific software wrappers
- [ ] field and lab reproducibility tools
- [ ] database software bindings
- [ ] geospatial data
- [ ] text analysis
Explain how and why the package falls under these categories (briefly, 1-2 sentences):

The NiceNumbeRRR package is primarily used to make numbers more human readable for the purpose of generating nicely formatted charts, reports, or presentations. The package falls under the category of data munging because it is to be used for formatting numbers that may not look nice when loaded from raw data.
Who is the target audience and what are scientific applications of this package?

The target audience is someone that often creates autogenerated reports and wants their formatting to look nice when they submit the reports to the public or their superiors. The scientific applications of this package could include any sort of scientific, engineering, financial or environmental reporting that contains large numbers that aren't human readable.
Are there other R packages that accomplish the same thing? If so, how does yours differ or meet our criteria for best-in-category?

Yes, the package humanize is similar to this package and there are likely many that perform somewhat similar tasks. The NiceNumbERRR package differs slightly in that it offers the functionality to apply formatting to dataframes objects and change the color of numbers.
(If applicable) Does your package comply with our guidance around Ethics, Data Privacy and Human Subjects Research?
If you made a pre-submission enquiry, please paste the link to the corresponding issue, forum post, or other discussion, or @tag the editor you contacted.

Technical checks

Confirm each of the following by checking the box.

[x] I have read the guide for authors and rOpenSci packaging guide.

This package:

[x] does not violate the Terms of Service of any service it interacts with.
[x] has a CRAN and OSI accepted license.
[x] contains a README with instructions for installing the development version.
[x] includes documentation with examples for all functions, created with roxygen2.
[x] contains a vignette with examples of its essential functions and uses.
[x] has a test suite.
[x] has continuous integration, including reporting of test coverage using services such as Travis CI, Coveralls and/or CodeCov.

Publication options

[ ] Do you intend for this package to go on CRAN?
[ ] Do you intend for this package to go on Bioconductor?
[ ] Do you wish to submit an Applications Article about your package to Methods in Ecology and Evolution? If so:

MEE Options

- [ ] The package is novel and will be of interest to the broad readership of the journal. - [ ] The manuscript describing the package is no longer than 3000 words. - [ ] You intend to archive the code for the package in a long-term repository which meets the requirements of the journal (see [MEE's Policy on Publishing Code](http://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)2041-210X/journal-resources/policy-on-publishing-code.html)) - (*Scope: Do consider MEE's [Aims and Scope](http://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)2041-210X/aims-and-scope/read-full-aims-and-scope.html) for your manuscript. We make no guarantee that your manuscript will be within MEE scope.*) - (*Although not required, we strongly recommend having a full manuscript prepared when you submit here.*) - (*Please do not submit your package separately to Methods in Ecology and Evolution*)

Code of conduct

[x] I agree to abide by rOpenSci's Code of Conduct during the review process and in maintaining my package should it be accepted.

Assigning @Saule-Atymtayeva & @nichowu as reviewers.

Package Review

Please check off boxes as applicable, and elaborate in comments below. Your review is not limited to these topics, as described in the reviewer guide

Briefly describe any working relationship you have (had) with the package authors.
[x] As the reviewer I confirm that there are no conflicts of interest for me to review this work (If you are unsure whether you are in conflict, please speak to your editor before starting your review).

Documentation

The package includes all the following forms of documentation:

[x] A statement of need clearly stating problems the software is designed to solve and its target audience in README
[x] Installation instructions: for the development version of package and any non-standard dependencies in README
[x] Vignette(s) demonstrating major functionality that runs successfully locally
[x] Function Documentation: for all exported functions
[x] Examples (that run successfully locally) for all exported functions
[x] Community guidelines including contribution guidelines in the README or CONTRIBUTING, and DESCRIPTION with URL, BugReports and Maintainer (which may be autogenerated via Authors@R).

For packages co-submitting to JOSS

[ ] The package has an obvious research application according to JOSS's definition

The package contains a paper.md matching JOSS's requirements with:

[ ] A short summary describing the high-level functionality of the software

[ ] Authors: A list of authors with their affiliations

[ ] A statement of need clearly stating problems the software is designed to solve and its target audience.

[ ] References: with DOIs for all those that have one (e.g. papers, datasets, software).

Functionality

[x] Installation: Installation succeeds as documented.
[x] Functionality: Any functional claims of the software been confirmed.
[x] Performance: Any performance claims of the software been confirmed.
[x] Automated tests: Unit tests cover essential functions of the package and a reasonable range of inputs and conditions. All tests pass on the local machine.
[x] Packaging guidelines: The package conforms to the rOpenSci packaging guidelines

Estimated hours spent reviewing: 2

[x] Should the author(s) deem it appropriate, I agree to be acknowledged as a package reviewer ("rev" role) in the package DESCRIPTION file.

Review Comments

Hi Guanshu, Cameron, Jayme and Zhiyong,

Congrats on completing the package. I like the idea of converting numbers into human or machine readable format. The functions in this package are easy to use and the documentation is clear for the most part. I was able to successfully run to_human, to_numeric and to_df. The output makes sense and I appreciate the toy data provided.

There are just a couple of suggestions on small details I wanted to bring to your attention:

Typos/Documentation

Your GitHub README page says I can install the released version of NiceNumbERRR from CRAN. I believe this is not the case as it was not yet published on CRAN.
I tried to run this code from your example on README but it threw an error.

to_human(78950000, prec = 0, family = "numeric") Error in check_family(family) : Family not in suffixes
I think instead of "numeric", we'd want to pass "number" to the family argument in this function.

Code Suggestion

Your to_color function strictly requires an integer to be passed in, so I received an error when I tried:

to_color(1234567, c("red", "green", "yellow", "blue")) Error in to_color(1234567, c("red", "green", "yellow", "blue")) : Can only support integer number
This could be confusing to some people because "1234567" looks like an integer in our human eyes. To make the function more accessible to most, I would convert the number into an integer within the function, instead of throwing an error to the user.
Another thing with to_color function is that I couldn't quite understand the output of the function. For example: when I run this:

to_color(1234567L, c("red", "green", "yellow", "blue"))

The output is:

"\033[32m1\033[0m\033[33m2\033[0m\033[34m3\033[0m\033[31m4\033[0m\033[32m5\033[0m\033[33m6\033[0m\033[34m7\033[0m"

I know that these are standard terminal color codes, but I'm not sure how one could utilize the output of this function. In your documentation, it says "The function will return a string that can be used in print() function to visual numbers with colors in the terminal". Can you clarify on that?
Your test functions seem to be thorough and the code in general are formatted properly. Good job on that!

Thanks,

Nick

Package Review

Please check off boxes as applicable, and elaborate in comments below. Your review is not limited to these topics, as described in the reviewer guide

Briefly describe any working relationship you have (had) with the package authors.
[x] As the reviewer I confirm that there are no conflicts of interest for me to review this work (If you are unsure whether you are in conflict, please speak to your editor before starting your review).

Documentation

The package includes all the following forms of documentation:

[x] A statement of need clearly stating problems the software is designed to solve and its target audience in README
[x] Installation instructions: for the development version of package and any non-standard dependencies in README

Please, read the comments below.

[x] Vignette(s) demonstrating major functionality that runs successfully locally
[x] Function Documentation: for all exported functions
[x] Examples (that run successfully locally) for all exported functions

Please, read the comments below.

[x] Community guidelines including contribution guidelines in the README or CONTRIBUTING, and DESCRIPTION with URL, BugReports and Maintainer (which may be autogenerated via Authors@R).

For packages co-submitting to JOSS

[ ] The package has an obvious research application according to JOSS's definition

The package contains a paper.md matching JOSS's requirements with:

[ ] A short summary describing the high-level functionality of the software

[ ] Authors: A list of authors with their affiliations

[ ] A statement of need clearly stating problems the software is designed to solve and its target audience.

[ ] References: with DOIs for all those that have one (e.g. papers, datasets, software).

Functionality

[x] Installation: Installation succeeds as documented.
[x] Functionality: Any functional claims of the software been confirmed.
[x] Performance: Any performance claims of the software been confirmed.
[x] Automated tests: Unit tests cover essential functions of the package and a reasonable range of inputs and conditions. All tests pass on the local machine.

Please, read the comments below.

[x] Packaging guidelines: The package conforms to the rOpenSci packaging guidelines

Estimated hours spent reviewing: 3.

[ ] Should the author(s) deem it appropriate, I agree to be acknowledged as a package reviewer ("rev" role) in the package DESCRIPTION file.

Review Comments

Hi NiceNumbERRR team,

Congratulations! Your work is really interesting, and I like how the numbers look after applying your functions.

I have some suggestions that might be useful in improving your project:

In the README and Vignette homepage documents, I would remove the part that says that the package can be installed from CRAN. I double-checked the availability of your package on CRAN in case there were any problems with the installation on my side, but I could not find the package.
Running the example provided in the README and Vignette homepage documents for the to_human function (to_human(78950000, prec = 0, family = "numeric")) threw the error saying that Family not in suffixes. I changed family = "numeric" into family = "number" to match the function input arguments, and it worked. So, you need to update this example in both documents. Also, I should mention that in the example you used install.packages("NiceNumbERRR") instead of devtools::install_github("UBC-MDS/NiceNumbERRR").
For the example output of the to_color function I would paste a screenshot so that users could see your expected "colored" results of applying the to_color function.
I ran devtools::check() on my computer, and there were a couple of notes. I managed to resolve them as follows.
- The solution for the Non-standard files/directories found at top level: ‘NiceNumbERRR_reviewform’ ‘docs’ note is here. The same solution will work for the NiceNumbERRR_reviewform file as well (I tried usethis::use_pkgdown(config_file = "_pkgdown.yml", destdir = "NiceNumbERRR_reviewform"), and it worked smoothly).
- To get rid of the > checking for unstated dependencies in vignettes ... NOTE '::' or ':::' import not declared from: ‘tibble’ note you can add tibble in the Imports section of DESCRIPTION.
The test coverage is 98.96%. There is one line that was not checked (return(n * base**(which(custom_suff == unit)))), so I would create one more test to cover 100% of the relevant code lines.

All the best, Saule

It seems like Nick and I have a couple of overlapping suggestions 🙂

@nichowu some clarification about to_color() function:

In R, 1234567 actually is a float/double type which I also feel surprised, 1234567L is integer type, and our function only support integer input to make it simple
I originally want to display the colored number after using function to_colour() in readme instead of a couple of weird string, but unfortunately Github no longer support color font, so a good way is to make a gif to show the real result of this function. thank you

@Saule-Atymtayeva thank you for the suggestion

UBC-MDS / software-review-2021