Interactive filter helper

This is a shortcut for interactive data exploration that makes it easy to filter rows that match a value in the key column of a tibble.

It produces the same result as filter(your_key_col == key_value). However it has the following advantages:

• Less typing

• Saves the key value to a hidden environment variable, so that calling it subsequently (perhaps on a different table) it is not necessary to specify the key value.

Usage

idf(.data, id = .last_id, glimpse = FALSE)

Arguments

id

A vector containing the key value(s) you want to filter. After the first time the function is called with a specified key value, the value is stored in a hidden object and does not need to be specified again.

glimpse

Print output using dplyr::glimpse, defaults to FALSE.

Value

The data filtered by the key value on the key column stored in options("idf_data_key") #' @examples

Motivation

When working with a set of tables that have an in-common id column (for example "unitid" in IPEDS or offender number in UDC data) it is often the case that when I find an individual with some issue in one table, I then want to see what the data for that individual is in another table. Rather than constantly having to use filter() with a matching argument, this function lets you just specify the id value on its own. And because the goal is often to look up an id value in one table and then immediately look it up in the other table, this function also saves whatever the last id value was so that it isn't necessary to specify it on subsequent function calls.

Warning

This function should not be used in non-interactive (ie in console) or non-diagnostic script code (i.e. anywhere that an object is written vs just printed).

Note

Upon first use of the function it will ask for the bare (unquoted) name of the key column. This can also be changed or set manually: options(idf_data_key = "your_data_key_column"), or by specifying a new id in the function call.