easyr

Helpful functions from Oliver Wyman Actuarial Consulting.

easyr makes difficult operations easy.

Installation

You can install the latest version available on CRAN:

install.packages('easyr')
require(easyr)

Or install the latest version from github:

devtools::install_github( "oliver-wyman-actuarial/easyr" )
require(easyr)

Getting Started

Tutorial: https://www.kaggle.com/brycechamberlain/easyr-tutorial.

Here is what a project looks like using easyr:

# start with begin() to set up your workspace.
# begin will set the working directory to the location of this file and
#     run anything in fun/ or functions/ so put your functions there.
require(easyr)
begin()

# read.any reads in your data regardless of format, with powerful typing to get numbers and dates.
# use ?read.any to see the many options.
dt = read.any( 'path/to/file.extension' )

# let's look at a data dictionary to understand our data.
View( dict( dt ) )

# begin has already loaded dplyr and magrittr so you are ready to go.
dt %<>% 
  filter( !is.na(id) ) %>% 
  mutate( newcol = oldcol1 + oldcol 2 )

# use w to quickly write to out.csv'.
w( dt )

Function categories:

• shorthand: protect your hands and move faster by typing less when using common functions.
• type conversion: convert fields to dates, numbers, characters, and logical.
• data wrangling: join and replace, explore data, factor-friendly joins and binds, etc.
• workflow: cacheing, run folder, validate data, etc.

Data:

• nastrings: common NA character values.
• states: U.S. State abbreviations
• cblind: color set built by and optimized for color-blind users.

Built, shared, and managed by Oliver Wyman Actuarial Consulting.

Now accepting proposed contributions through GitHub!

Highlights

• begin is a one-line template for starting a project. It clears any pre-existing variables, loads dplyr, sets your working directory location, and more!
• cc (concatenate) replaces paste0 to reduce typing.
• tonum, todate, and tobool convert character vectors to numbers, dates, and logicals. R has functions that attempt this, but none that worked consistently for us. These functions handle many more incoming data formats.
• read.any automatically selects the best read function for you, and sets correct variable types on incoming data so you don't have to. Without easyr, R requires a different function for each file type.
• jrepl (join and replace) joins a mapping to add a column or replaces values. This usually takes multiple operations but jrepl combines it to one.
• dict returns information about a dataset's columns. fldict does the same for a folder of datasets.
• eq R users will understand that NAs often break equality checks. This check doesn’t mind them.
• fmat converts dates and numbers to pretty strings in a simpler way than the format function.
• Check out the detailed list of functions below for more.

Philosophy

This packages comes from code we've written to make our daily work more efficient. We rely on it heavily in our organization.

It is built on the following tenets:

• Writing code should be easy and fun: minimize the amount of typing required to get to working code. Focus on common operations and make them easier and more flexible.

• Your fingers are precious: reduce the amount of typing and hand strain during coding. This means avoiding the shift key and choosing short names. Some function names won't be intuitive at first, but they’ll save you keystrokes later.

• Generic scope: avoid functions that apply to domain-specific tasks. These belong in other packages.

Make A Contribution

Any and all contributions are welcome. The easiest way to contribute is to add an Issue. This can be a bug identified or even an idea you have on how we can improve easyr. Please be detailed and provide examples to make it easy for the community to resolve your issue/idea.

If you would like to make a more material contribution via Pull Request, please consider:

• The Issue page page lists open issues that we need your help to resolve.
• build-install-test.R is included to let you run tests. Please run this to ensure your changes don't cause tests or examples to fail.
• tests/testthat folder contains tests. Consider adding a test to validate your change and prevent someone else from breaking it in the future.
• cmd-code-run-checks.txt contains command-line scripts you can run to check if your changes will be acceptable to CRAN. If it isn't, it'll require extra work by us before we can submit to CRAN.

Support

Submit an Issue or Pull Request via GitHub and the community will review it.

Functions

Here are the functions in easyr by category. Use ?functionName to view detailed documentation for a function.

Shorthand

Common operations shortened for elegance, simplicity, and speed.

Type Conversion

Helpful for setting or changing variable/vector data types.

Data Wrangling

Help with reading and manipulating data.

Workflow

Operations to run projects and organize code.

Data

These data resources are also included.