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Create a semantically well-defined, labelled vector

Source: R/defined.R
defined.Rd

defined() constructs a vector enriched with semantic metadata such as a label, unit of measurement, concept URI, and optional namespace. These vectors behave like base R vectors but retain metadata during subsetting, comparison, and printing.

Usage

defined(
  x,
  labels = NULL,
  label = NULL,
  unit = NULL,
  concept = NULL,
  namespace = NULL,
  ...
)

is.defined(x)

# S3 method for class 'haven_labelled_defined'
summary(object, ...)

Arguments

x

A vector of type character, numeric, Date, factor, or a labelled object.

labels

An optional named vector of value labels. Only a subset of values may be labelled.

label

A short human-readable label (string of length 1).

unit

Unit of measurement (e.g., "kg", "hours"). Must be a string of length 1 or NULL.

concept

A URI or concept name representing the meaning of the variable.

namespace

Optional string or named character vector, used for value-level URI expansion.

...

Reserved for future use.

object

An R object to be summarised.

Value

A vector of class "defined" (technically haven_labelled_defined), which behaves like a standard vector with additional semantic metadata and is inherited from haven::labelled().

Details

The resulting object inherits from haven::labelled() and integrates with tidyverse workflows, enabling downstream conversion to RDF and other standards.

See also

browseVignettes("dataset")

is.defined(), as_numeric(), as_character(), as_factor(), strip_defined()

Examples

gdp_vector <- defined(
  c(3897, 7365, 6753),
  label = "Gross Domestic Product",
  unit = "million dollars",
  concept = "http://data.europa.eu/83i/aa/GDP"
)

# To check the s3 class of the vector:
is.defined(gdp_vector)
#> [1] TRUE

# To print the defined vector:
print(gdp_vector)
#> gdp_vector: Gross Domestic Product
#> Defined as http://data.europa.eu/83i/aa/GDP, measured in million dollars 
#> [1] 3897 7365 6753

# To summarise the defined vector:
summary(gdp_vector)
#> Gross Domestic Product (million dollars)
#>    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
#>    3897    5325    6753    6005    7059    7365 

# Subsetting work as expected:
gdp_vector[1:2]
#> x: Gross Domestic Product
#> Defined as http://data.europa.eu/83i/aa/GDP, measured in million dollars 
#> [1] 3897 7365