R help - Oct 2005 - returning a modified fix()-ed dataframe

Dear all,

In order to ease the transition from SPSS to R for some of my colleagues, I am 
trying to create a function which would show the variables and their labels 
(if those exist), using function "label" in package Hmisc.

A toy example would be this:

my.data <- data.frame(age=c(24,35,28), gender=c("Male",
"Female", "Male"))
require(Hmisc)
label(my.data$age) <- "Respondent's age"
label(my.data$gender) <- "Responent's gender"

variables <- function(x) {
        dataf <- data.frame(variable=NA, label=NA)
        varlab <- NA
        for (i in 1:length(names(x))) {
                dataf[i,1] <- names(x)[i]
                dataf[i,2] <- label(x[,i])
                varlab[i] <- label(x[,i])
        }
        fix(dataf)
        # I assume this would return a modified dataf
        for (i in which(varlab != dataf[,2])) {
                label(x[,i]) <- dataf[i,2]
        }
}

Now, say during fix() one modified "Responent's gender" into
"Respondent's
gender" (the previous missed a "d"). The trouble I'm having
is to return the
modified object, with the modified labels. It should be easy, I feel it, but 
I just can't get it.

Thank you in advance,
Adrian

-- 
Adrian DUSA
Romanian Social Data Archive
1, Schitu Magureanu Bd
050025 Bucharest sector 5
Romania
Tel./Fax: +40 21 3126618 \
          +40 21 3120210 / int.101

Adrian DUSA wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> In order to ease the transition from SPSS to R for some of my colleagues, I
am
> trying to create a function which would show the variables and their labels
> (if those exist), using function "label" in package Hmisc.
> 
> A toy example would be this:
> 
> my.data <- data.frame(age=c(24,35,28), gender=c("Male",
"Female", "Male"))
> require(Hmisc)
> label(my.data$age) <- "Respondent's age"
> label(my.data$gender) <- "Responent's gender"
> 
> variables <- function(x) {
>         dataf <- data.frame(variable=NA, label=NA)
>         varlab <- NA
>         for (i in 1:length(names(x))) {
>                 dataf[i,1] <- names(x)[i]
>                 dataf[i,2] <- label(x[,i])
>                 varlab[i] <- label(x[,i])
>         }
>         fix(dataf)
>         # I assume this would return a modified dataf
>         for (i in which(varlab != dataf[,2])) {
>                 label(x[,i]) <- dataf[i,2]
>         }
> }
> 
> Now, say during fix() one modified "Responent's gender" into
"Respondent's
> gender" (the previous missed a "d"). The trouble I'm
having is to return the
> modified object, with the modified labels. It should be easy, I feel it,
but
> I just can't get it.
> 
> Thank you in advance,
> Adrian
> 
Hi, Adrian,

You need to assign "fix(dataf)" to something:

my.data <- data.frame(age=c(24,35,28), gender=c("Male",
"Female", "Male"))
require(Hmisc)
label(my.data$age) <- "Respondent's age"
label(my.data$gender) <- "Responent's gender"

variables <- function(x) {
   dataf <- data.frame(variable=NA, label=NA)
   varlab <- NA
   for (i in 1:length(names(x))) {
     dataf[i,1] <- names(x)[i]
     dataf[i,2] <- label(x[,i])
     varlab[i] <- label(x[,i])
   }
   dataf <- fix(dataf)
   # I assume this would return a modified dataf
   for (i in which(varlab != dataf[,2])) {
     label(x[,i]) <- dataf[i,2]
   }
   # don't forget to return dataf
   dataf
}

variables(my.data)

HTH,

--sundar