Merges two .omv-files for the statistical spreadsheet 'jamovi' (https://www.jamovi.org) by adding the content of the second, etc. file(s) as rows to the first file

merge_rows_omv(
  dtaInp = NULL,
  fleOut = "",
  typMrg = c("all", "common"),
  colInd = FALSE,
  rstRwN = TRUE,
  rmvDpl = FALSE,
  varSrt = c(),
  usePkg = c("foreign", "haven"),
  selSet = "",
  ...
)

Arguments

dtaInp

Either a data frame (with the attribute "fleInp" containing the files to merge) or vector with the names of the input files (including the path, if required; "FILENAME.ext"; default: NULL); files can be of any supported file type, see Details below

fleOut

Name of the data file to be written (including the path, if required; "FILE_OUT.omv"; default: ""); if empty, the resulting data frame is returned instead

typMrg

Type of merging operation: "all" (default) or "common"; see also Details

colInd

Add a column with an indicator (the basename of the file minus the extension) marking from which input data set the respective rows are coming (default: FALSE)

rstRwN

Reset row names (i.e., do not keep the row names of the original input data sets but number them consecutively - one to the row number of all input data sets added up; default: TRUE)

rmvDpl

Remove duplicated rows (i.e., rows with the same content as a previous row in all columns; default: FALSE)

varSrt

Variable(s) that are used to sort the data frame (see Details; if empty, the order after merging is kept; default: c())

usePkg

Name of the package: "foreign" or "haven" that shall be used to read SPSS, Stata and SAS files; "foreign" is the default (it comes with base R), but "haven" is newer and more comprehensive

selSet

Name of the data set that is to be selected from the workspace (only applies when reading .RData-files)

...

Additional arguments passed on to methods; see Details below

Value

a data frame (only returned if fleOut is empty) where the rows of all input data sets (given in the dtaInp-argument) are concatenated

Details

  • Using data frames with the input parameter dtaInp is primarily thought to be used when calling merge_cols_omv from the jamovi-modules jTransform and Rj. For the use in R, it is strongly recommended to use a character vector with the file names instead.

  • There are four different types of merging operations (defined via typMrg): "all" keeps all existing variables / columns that are contained in any of the input data sets and fills them up with NA where the variable / column doesn't exist in an input data set. "common" only keeps the variables / columns that are common to all input data sets (i.e., that are contained in all data sets).

  • varSrt can be either a character or a character vector (with one or more variables respectively). The sorting order for a particular variable can be inverted with preceding the variable name with "-". Please note that this doesn't make sense and hence throws a warning for certain variable types (e.g., factors).

  • The ellipsis-parameter (...) can be used to submit arguments / parameters to the functions that are used for merging or reading the data. By clicking on the respective function under “See also”, you can get a more detailed overview over which parameters each of those functions take.

  • Adding columns uses rbind (with some further operation, adding missing columns (filled with NAs), if typMrg is "all").

  • The functions for reading and writing the data are: read_omv and write_omv (for jamovi-files), read.table (for CSV / TSV files; using similar defaults as read.csv for CSV and read.delim for TSV which both are based upon read.table), load (for .RData-files), readRDS (for .rds-files), read_sav (needs R-package haven) or read.spss (needs R-package foreign) for SPSS-files, read_dta (haven) / read.dta (foreign) for Stata-files, read_sas (haven) for SAS-data-files, and read_xpt (haven) / read.xport (foreign) for SAS-transport-files. If you would like to use haven, you may need to install it using install.packages("haven", dep = TRUE).

See also

merge_rows_omv internally uses the following functions: Adding columns uses rbind(). For reading and writing data files in different formats: read_omv() and write_omv() for jamovi-files, utils::read.table() for CSV / TSV files, load() for reading .RData-files, readRDS() for .rds-files, haven::read_sav() or foreign::read.spss() for SPSS-files, haven::read_dta() or foreign::read.dta() for Stata-files, haven::read_sas() for SAS-data-files, and haven::read_xpt() or foreign::read.xport() for SAS-transport-files.

Examples

if (FALSE) {
dtaInp <- jmvReadWrite::bfi_sample2
nmeInp <- paste0(tempfile(), "_", 1:3, ".rds")
nmeOut <- tempfile(fileext = ".omv")
for (i in seq_along(nmeInp)) saveRDS(dtaInp[-i - 1], nmeInp[i])
# save dtaInp three times (i.e., the length of nmeInp), removing one data columns in
# each data set (for demonstration purposes, A1 in the first, A2 in the second, ...)
jmvReadWrite::merge_rows_omv(dtaInp = nmeInp, fleOut = nmeOut, colInd = TRUE)
cat(file.info(nmeOut)$size)
# -> 10767 (size may differ on different OSes)
dtaOut <- jmvReadWrite::read_omv(nmeOut, sveAtt = FALSE)
unlink(nmeOut)
# read the data set where the three original datasets were added as rows and show
# the variable names
cat(names(dtaInp))
cat(names(dtaOut))
# compared to the input data set, we have the same variable names; fleInd (switched
# on by colInd = TRUE and showing from which data set the rows are coming from) is
# new and A1 is moved to the end of the list (the "original" order of variables may
# not always be preserved and columns missing from at least one of the input data
# sets may be added at the end)
cat(dim(dtaInp), dim(dtaOut))
# the first dimension of the data sets (rows) is now three times of that of the input
# data set (250 -> 750), the second dimension (columns / variables) is increased by 1
# (for "fleInd")

jmvReadWrite::merge_rows_omv(dtaInp = nmeInp, fleOut = nmeOut, typMrg = "common")
# the argument typMrg = "common" removes the columns that are not present in all of
# the input data sets (i.e., A1, A2, A3)
dtaOut <- jmvReadWrite::read_omv(nmeOut, sveAtt = FALSE)
unlink(nmeOut)
# read the data set where the three original datasets were added as rows and show
# the variable names
cat(names(dtaInp))
cat(names(dtaOut))
# compared to the input data set, the variables that were missing in at least one
# data set (i.e., "A1", "A2" and "A3") are removed
cat(dim(dtaInp), dim(dtaOut))
# the first dimension of the data sets (rows) is now three times of that of the
# input data set (250 -> 750), the second dimension (columns / variables) is
# reduced by 3 (i.e., "A1", "A2", "A3")

unlink(nmeInp)
}