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Match names that start or contain a specified text string

Usage

fuzzy_filter(
  name,
  by = c("scientificName", "vernacularName"),
  provider = getOption("taxadb_default_provider", "itis"),
  match = c("contains", "starts_with"),
  version = latest_version(),
  db = td_connect(),
  ignore_case = TRUE,
  collect = TRUE
)

Arguments

name

vector of names (scientific or common, see by) to be matched against.

by

a column name in the taxa_tbl (following Darwin Core Schema terms). The filtering join is executed with this column as the joining variable.

provider

from which provider should the hierarchy be returned? Default is 'itis', which can also be configured using options(default_taxadb_provider=..."). See [td_create] for a list of recognized providers.

match

should we match by names starting with the term or containing the term anywhere in the name?

version

Which version of the taxadb provider database should we use? defaults to latest. See tl_import for details.

db

a connection to the taxadb database. See details.

ignore_case

should we ignore case (capitalization) in matching names? Can be significantly slower to run.

collect

logical, default TRUE. Should we return an in-memory data.frame (default, usually the most convenient), or a reference to lazy-eval table on disk (useful for very large tables on which we may first perform subsequent filtering operations.)

Details

Note that fuzzy filter will be fast with an single or small number of names, but will be slower if given a very large vector of names to match, as unlike other filter_ commands, fuzzy matching requires separate SQL calls for each name. As fuzzy matches should all be confirmed manually in any event, e.g. not every common name containing "monkey" belongs to a primate species.

This method utilizes the database operation %like% to filter tables without loading into memory. Note that this does not support the use of regular expressions at this time.

Examples

# \donttest{

## match any common name containing:
name <- c("woodpecker", "monkey")
fuzzy_filter(name, "vernacularName")
#> # A tibble: 254 × 15
#>    taxonID     scientificName      taxonRank acceptedNameUsageID taxonomicStatus
#>    <chr>       <chr>               <chr>     <chr>               <chr>          
#>  1 ITIS:572960 Lagothrix lagotric… species   ITIS:944187         synonym        
#>  2 ITIS:573055 Pygathrix bieti     species   ITIS:944259         synonym        
#>  3 ITIS:612157 Callicebus lugens   species   ITIS:1025104        synonym        
#>  4 ITIS:944300 Mycetes flavimanus  species   ITIS:572935         synonym        
#>  5 ITIS:944305 Mycetes rufimanus   species   ITIS:572935         synonym        
#>  6 ITIS:944313 Nyctipithecus oser… species   ITIS:572952         synonym        
#>  7 ITIS:944318 Ateles albifrons    species   ITIS:944186         synonym        
#>  8 ITIS:944324 Ateles frontalis    species   ITIS:572956         synonym        
#>  9 ITIS:944328 Ateles pentadactyl… species   ITIS:572953         synonym        
#> 10 ITIS:944330 Ateles variegatus   species   ITIS:572954         synonym        
#> # ℹ 244 more rows
#> # ℹ 10 more variables: update_date <lgl>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>,
#> #   class <chr>, order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, specificEpithet <chr>,
#> #   vernacularName <chr>, infraspecificEpithet <lgl>

## match scientific name
fuzzy_filter("Chera", "scientificName",
             match = "starts_with")
#> # A tibble: 6 × 15
#>   taxonID      scientificName      taxonRank acceptedNameUsageID taxonomicStatus
#>   <chr>        <chr>               <chr>     <chr>               <chr>          
#> 1 ITIS:1025110 Cheracebus purinus  species   ITIS:1025110        accepted       
#> 2 ITIS:1025105 Cheracebus medemi   species   ITIS:1025105        accepted       
#> 3 ITIS:1025107 Cheracebus lucifer  species   ITIS:1025107        accepted       
#> 4 ITIS:1025104 Cheracebus lugens   species   ITIS:1025104        accepted       
#> 5 ITIS:1025106 Cheracebus torquat… species   ITIS:1025106        accepted       
#> 6 ITIS:1025111 Cheracebus regulus  species   ITIS:1025111        accepted       
#> # ℹ 10 more variables: update_date <lgl>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>,
#> #   class <chr>, order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, specificEpithet <chr>,
#> #   vernacularName <chr>, infraspecificEpithet <lgl>
# }