A formatting list contains more than one formatting object.

flist(..., type = "column", lookup = NULL, simplify = TRUE)

Arguments

...

A set of formatting objects.

type

The type of formatting list. Valid values are 'row' or 'column'. The default value is 'column'.

lookup

A lookup vector. Used for looking up the format from the formatting list. This parameter is only used for 'row' type formatting lists.

simplify

Whether to simplify the results to a vector. Valid values are TRUE or FALSE. Default is TRUE. If the value is set to FALSE, the return type will be a list.

Value

A vector or list of formatted values. The type of return value can be controlled with the simplify parameter. The default return type is a vector.

Details

To apply more than one formatting object to a vector, use a formatting list. There are two types of formatting list: column and row. The column type formatting lists applies all formats to all values in the vector. The row type formatting list can apply a different format to each value in the vector.

Further, there are two styles of row type list: ordered and lookup. The ordered style applies each format in the list to the vector values in the order specified. The ordered style will recycle the formats as needed. The lookup style formatting list uses a lookup to determine which format from the list to apply to a particular value of the vector. The lookup column values should correspond to names on the formatting list.

Examples of column type and row type formatting lists are given below.

See also

fapply for information on how formats are applied to a vector, value for how to create a user-defined format, and as.flist to convert an existing list of formats to a formatting list. Also see FormattingStrings for details on how to use formatting strings.

Other flist: as.data.frame.fmt_lst(), as.flist(), as.flist.data.frame(), as.flist.fcat(), as.flist.list(), as.flist.tbl_df(), is.flist(), print.fmt_lst(), read.flist(), write.flist()

Examples

## Example 1: Formatting List - Column Type ##
# Set up data
v1 <- c(Sys.Date(), Sys.Date() + 30, Sys.Date() + 60)

# Create formatting list
fl1 <- flist("%B", "The month is: %s")

# Apply formatting list to vector
fapply(v1, fl1)
# [1] "The month is: October"  "The month is: November" "The month is: December"

## Example 2: Formatting List - Row Type ordered ##
# Set up data
# Notice each row has a different data type
l1 <- list("A", 1.263, as.Date("2020-07-21"), 
          "B", 5.8732, as.Date("2020-10-17"))
          
# These formats will be recycled in the order specified           
fl2 <- flist(type = "row",
             c(A = "Label A", B = "Label B"),
             "%.1f",
             "%d%b%Y")

fapply(l1, fl2)
# [1] "Label A"   "1.3"       "21Jul2020" "Label B"   "5.9"       "17Oct2020"


## Example 3: Formatting List - Row Type with lookup ##

#' # Create formatting list
fl3 <- flist(type = "row", 
             DEC1 = "%.1f",
             DEC2 = "%.2f", 
             PCT1 = "%.1f%%")
             
# Set up data
df <- data.frame(CODE = c("DEC1", "DEC2", "PCT1", "DEC2", "PCT1"),
                 VAL = c(41.258, 62.948, 12.125, 65.294, 15.825))

# Assign lookup
fl3$lookup <- df$CODE

# Apply Formatting List
fapply(df$VAL, fl3)
# [1] "41.3"  "62.95" "12.1%" "65.29" "15.8%"

## Example 4: Formatting List - Values with Units ##

#' # Create formatting list
fl4 <- flist(type = "row", 
             BASO = "%.2f x10(9)/L",
             EOS  = "%.2f x10(9)/L",
             HCT = "%.1f%%", 
             HGB = "%.1f g/dL")
             
# Set up data
df <- data.frame(CODE = c("BASO", "EOS", "HCT", "HGB"),
                 VAL = c(0.02384, 0.14683, 40.68374, 15.6345))

# Assign lookup
fl4$lookup <- df$CODE

# Apply Formatting List
df$VALC <- fapply(df$VAL, fl4)

# View results
df
#   CODE      VAL          VALC
# 1 BASO  0.02384 0.02 x10(9)/L
# 2  EOS  0.14683 0.15 x10(9)/L
# 3  HCT 40.68374         40.7%
# 4  HGB 15.63450     15.6 g/dL