simdesign: Design specification for simulating datasets

Description

Stores information necessary to simulate and visualize datasets based on underlying distribution Z.

Usage

simdesign(
  generator,
  transform_initial = base::identity,
  n_var_final = -1,
  types_final = NULL,
  names_final = NULL,
  prefix_final = "v",
  process_final = list(),
  name = "Simulation design",
  check_and_infer = TRUE,
  ...
)

Value

List object with class attribute "simdesign" (S3 class) containing the following entries (if no further information given, entries are directly saved from user input):

generator

name

transform_initial

n_var_final

types_final

names_final

process_final

entries for further information as passed by the user

Arguments

generator: Function which generates data from the underlying base distribution. It is assumed it takes the number of simulated observations n_obs as first argument, as all random generation functions in the stats and extraDistr do. Furthermore, it is expected to return a two-dimensional array as output (matrix or data.frame). Alternatively an R object derived from the simdata::simdesign class. See details.
transform_initial: Function which specifies the transformation of the underlying dataset Z to final dataset X. See details.
n_var_final: Integer, number of columns in final datamatrix X. Can be inferred when check_and_infer is TRUE.
types_final: Optional vector of length equal to n_var_final (set by the user or inferred) and hence number of columns of final dataset X. Allowed entries are "logical", "factor" and "numeric". Stores the type of the columns of X. If not specified by, inferred if check_and_infer is set to TRUE.
names_final: NULL or character vector with variable names for final dataset X. Length needs to equal the number of columns of X. Overrides other naming options. See details.
prefix_final: NULL or prefix attached to variables in final dataset X. Overriden by names_final argument. Set to NULL if no prefixes should be added. See details.
process_final: List of lists specifying post-processing functions applied to final datamatrix X before returning it. See do_processing.
name: Character, optional name of the simulation design.
check_and_infer: If TRUE, then the simulation design is tested by simulating 5 observations using simulate_data. If everything works without error, the variables n_var_final and types_final will be inferred from the results if not already set correctly by the user.
...: Further arguments are directly stored in the list object to be passed to simulate_data.

Naming of variables

If check_and_infer is set to TRUE, the following procedure determines the names of the variables:

use names_final if specified and of correct length
otherwise, use the names of transform_initial if present and of correct length
otherwise, use prefix_final to prefix the variable number if not NULL
otherwise, use names from dataset as generated by the generator function

Simulation Templates

This class is intended to be used as a template for simulation designs which are based on specific underlying distributions. All such a template needs to define is the generator function and its construction and pass it to this function along with the other arguments. See simdesign_mvtnorm for an example.

Details

The simdesign class should be used in the following workflow:

Specify a design template which will be used in subsequent data generating / visualization steps.
Sample / visualize datamatrix following template (possibly multiple times) using simulate_data.
Use sampled datamatrix for simulation study.

For more details on generators and transformations, please see the documentation of simulate_data.

For details on post-processing, please see the documentation of do_processing.

Examples

Run this code

generator <- function(n) mvtnorm::rmvnorm(n, mean = 0)
sim_design <- simdesign(generator)
simulate_data(sim_design, 10, seed = 19)

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