Sometimes, certain nodes in an XML ancestory may want to be
neglected before any keys are created (see add_key)
or observations are aggregated (see collapse). This
function takes a list of "observations" (that is, a list of
matrices with one row) and alters the names of that list.
Note that any information lost from changing names is saved
in a new column whose name is specified by
diff.name.
must be equivalent to names(obs).
Intended use is to avoid unneccessarily repeating that
operation.
equiv
character vector with the appropriate
(unique) names that should be regarded "equivalent".
diff.name
character string used for naming the
variable that is appended to any observations whose name
was overwritten. The value for this variable is the
difference in from the original name and the overwritten
name.
rename.as
character string to override naming of
observations that are renamed.
quiet
logical. Include message about how
observations are being renamed?