Set and retrieve the label, resp. unit attribute of x. This can be helpful for documenting the specific meaning of a variable, of an entire data.frame or any other object. For single vectors it can be useful to store the unit.

Label(x)
Label(x) <- value

Labels(x)
Labels(x) <- value

Unit(x)
Unit(x) <- value

Arguments

x

any object

value

a single string describing the object

Details

The label should consist of a single text (length of 1). The text may contain line feeds. It can be deleted by setting the label to NULL.

Labels() can be used to retrieve and assign vectorized labels to data.frames or lists.

Value

Label and Unit return the label attribute of x, if any; otherwise, NULL.

Author

Andri Signorell <andri@signorell.net>

See also

A more elaborated label version can be found in package Hmisc label().

Examples

# add a descriptive label to a variable
Label(d.diamonds$colour) <- "The rating scale applied to diamonds ranges from colorless
to yellow, as any other color is extremely rare."

# technically just appending the text as attribute to the variable
attributes(d.diamonds$colour)
#> $levels
#> [1] "D" "E" "F" "G" "H" "I" "J" "K" "L"
#> 
#> $class
#> [1] "factor"
#> 
#> $label
#> [1] "The rating scale applied to diamonds ranges from colorless\nto yellow, as any other color is extremely rare."
#> 

# label is supported while describing data
Desc(d.diamonds$colour)
#> ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 
#> d.diamonds$colour (factor) :
#>   The rating scale applied to diamonds ranges from colorless to yellow,
#>   as any other color is extremely rare.
#> 
#> 
#>   length      n    NAs unique levels  dupes
#>      440    440      0      9      9      y
#>          100.0%   0.0%                     
#> 
#>    level  freq   perc  cumfreq  cumperc
#> 1      I    79  18.0%       79    18.0%
#> 2      J    72  16.4%      151    34.3%
#> 3      H    71  16.1%      222    50.5%
#> 4      F    58  13.2%      280    63.6%
#> 5      E    54  12.3%      334    75.9%
#> 6      G    43   9.8%      377    85.7%
#> 7      K    31   7.0%      408    92.7%
#> 8      D    20   4.5%      428    97.3%
#> 9      L    12   2.7%      440   100.0%
#> 


# The label can be deleted by setting it to NULL
Label(d.diamonds$colour) <- NULL

# Labelling the columns of a data.frame is best done with a loop
# (all so far seen *apply aproaches lead to more complicated code...)
lbl <-  RndWord(16, 7)
for(i in seq_along(lbl))
  Label(d.pizza[, i]) <- lbl[i]

Str(d.pizza)
#> 'data.frame':	1209 obs. of  16 variables:
#>   1 $ index         : int  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "YUBIWKE"
#>   2 $ date          : Date, format: "2014-03-01" "2014-03-01" "2014-03-01" "2014-03-01" ...
#>   3 $ week          : num  9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "AVTXXWD"
#>   4 $ weekday       : num  6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "ATOJFSU"
#>   5 $ area          : Factor w/ 3 levels "Brent","Camden",..: 2 3 3 1 1 2 2 1 3 1 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "TUYNORH"
#>   6 $ count         : int  5 2 3 2 5 1 4 NA 3 6 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "XNVXXCC"
#>   7 $ rabate        : logi  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE TRUE FALSE ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "BVNIJXV"
#>   8 $ price         : num  65.7 27 41 26 57.6 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "FUKFATC"
#>   9 $ operator      : Factor w/ 3 levels "Allanah","Maria",..: 3 3 1 1 3 1 3 1 1 3 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "BNECAAF"
#>  10 $ driver        : Factor w/ 7 levels "Butcher","Carpenter",..: 7 1 1 7 3 7 7 7 7 3 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "NXXDPHS"
#>  11 $ delivery_min  : num  20 19.6 17.8 37.3 21.8 48.7 49.3 25.6 26.4 24.3 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "EIJACJU"
#>  12 $ temperature   : num  53 56.4 36.5 NA 50 27 33.9 54.8 48 54.4 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "NGKZJKG"
#>  13 $ wine_ordered  : int  0 0 0 0 0 0 1 NA 0 1 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "OYEYGIC"
#>  14 $ wine_delivered: int  0 0 0 0 0 0 1 NA 0 1 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "NTRZBOT"
#>  15 $ wrongpizza    : logi  FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "CTHHRDE"
#>  16 $ quality       : Ord.factor w/ 3 levels "low"<"medium"<..: 2 3 NA NA 2 1 1 3 3 2 ...
#>   ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "JNOYIEN"