HELP (version 1.30.0)

fuzzyMatches: Fuzzy matching

Description

Match and reinterpret a vector in terms of a second vector, essentially using the second vector as a key to interpret the first.

Usage

fuzzyMatches(x, y, ...)

Arguments

x

vector, the values to be matched.

y

vector, the values to be matched against.

...

Arguments to be passed to methods (see getSamples-methods):

strict

logical indicating whether or not to allow restrict matching. If FALSE, numerical indices in x can reference values in y. If TRUE (default), only exact matches of values in x and y will be used.

keep

logical indicating whether or not to preserve non-matching values from x (when strict = FALSE). If TRUE (default), all values in x will be returned with those that match values in y replaced by the corresponding values in y. If FALSE, non-matching values will be removed.

alias

logical indicating whether or not to return aliased values (default is TRUE). If FALSE, numerical indices will be returned with a value of nomatch for non-matching values in x.

match.all

character value, specifying a special value to be interpreted as a match for ALL values in y (default is "*"). Any occurence of match.all in x will be replaced by all values in y.

nomatch

numerical, specifying a value for non-matching values in codex when strict = FALSE, keep = TRUE, and alias = FALSE.

na.rm

a logical value indicating whether NA values should be stripped before the computation proceeds (default is TRUE). If FALSE any missing values in x will cause an error and missing values in codey may cause unexpected behavior.

\dots

other arguments not handled at this time.

Value

Returns a vector of unique values in x, that match values in y according to the parameters described above.

Details

This function employs multiple stages of matching between two vectors. First, the values in x are matched against y to find any exact matches. Next, numerical values in x are used to retrieve the corresponding positions in y. All unmatched values may be retained or dropped (depending on the value of keep), and a list of unique values is returned. Note that a value of match.all in x will be interpreted as a match for ALL values in y, and therefore replaced with the contents of y.

See Also

fuzzyMatches-methods, match

Examples

a <- c(1, "four", "missing")
b <- c("one", "two", "three", "four")
fuzzyMatches(a, b)
fuzzyMatches(a, b, strict=FALSE)
fuzzyMatches(a, b, strict=FALSE, alias=FALSE)
fuzzyMatches(a, b, strict=FALSE, keep=FALSE)