webtrackR (version 0.1.0)

classify_visits: Classify visits by matching to a list of classes

Description

classify_visits() categorizes visits by either extracting the visit URL's domain or host and matching them to a list of domains or hosts; or by matching a list of regular expressions against the visit URL.

Usage

classify_visits(
  wt,
  classes,
  match_by = "domain",
  regex_on = NULL,
  return_rows_by = NULL,
  return_rows_val = NULL
)

Value

webtrack data.table with the same columns as wt and any column in classes except the column specified by match_by.

Arguments

wt

webtrack data object.

classes

a data.table containing classes that can be matched to visits.

match_by

character. Whether to match list entries from classes to the domain of a visit ("domain") or the host ("host") with an exact match; or with a regular expression against the whole URL of a visit ("regex"). If set to "domain" or "host", both wt and classes need to have a column called accordingly. If set to "regex", the url column of wt will be used, and you need to set regex_on to the column in classes for which to do the pattern matching. Defaults to "domain".

regex_on

character. Column in classes which to use for pattern matching. Defaults to NULL.

return_rows_by

character. A column in classes on which to subset the returning data. Defaults to NULL.

return_rows_val

character. The value of the columns specified in return_rows_by, for which data should be returned. For example, if your classes data contains a column type, which has a value called "shopping", setting return_rows_by to "type" and return_rows_val to "shopping" will only return visits classified as "shopping".

Examples

if (FALSE) {
data("testdt_tracking")
data("domain_list")
wt <- as.wt_dt(testdt_tracking)
# classify visits via domain
wt_domains <- extract_domain(wt, drop_na = FALSE)
wt_classes <- classify_visits(wt_domains, classes = domain_list, match_by = "domain")
# classify visits via domain
# for the example, just renaming "domain" column
domain_list$host <- domain_list$domain
wt_hosts <- extract_host(wt, drop_na = FALSE)
wt_classes <- classify_visits(wt_hosts, classes = domain_list, match_by = "host")
# classify visits with pattern matching
# for the example, any value in "domain" treated as pattern
data("domain_list")
regex_list <- domain_list[type == "facebook"]
wt_classes <- classify_visits(wt[1:5000],
  classes = regex_list,
  match_by = "regex", regex_on = "domain"
)
# classify visits via domain and only return class "search"
data("domain_list")
wt_classes <- classify_visits(wt_domains,
  classes = domain_list,
  match_by = "domain", return_rows_by = "type",
  return_rows_val = "search"
)
}