birdie (version 0.7.1)

preproc: Preprocess Last Names and Geographic Identifiers

Description

These functions are called automatically by bisg() but may be useful, especially when geographic variables are included in a birdie() model. proc_zip() and proc_state() preprocess their corresponding geographic identifiers. States are partially matched to state names and abbreviations and are returned as FIPS codes. ZIP codes are crosswalked to Census ZCTAs. Missing identifiers are replaced with "<none>". proc_name() processes last names in accordance with Census processing rules (https://www2.census.gov/topics/genealogy/2010surnames/surnames.pdf). Names are converted to Latin characters, capitalized, stripped of prefixes and suffixes, and otherwise standardized.

Usage

proc_zip(x)
proc_state(x)
proc_name(x, to_latin = TRUE)

Value

A processed character vector

Arguments

x

A character vector of names or geographic identifiers to process

to_latin

If TRUE, convert names to Latin characters only. Strongly recommended if non-Latin characters are present, since these will not match Census tables. However, the conversion is slightly time-consuming and so can be disabled with this flag.

Functions

• proc_zip(): Match ZIP codes to ZCTAs and fill in missing values.

• proc_state(): Match state names and abbreviations and fill in missing values.

• proc_name(): Process names to a Census-standardized format.

Examples

proc_name("Smith Jr.")
proc_zip("00501")
proc_state("Washington")