Adding Annotations to Objects¶
Description¶
Annotations, that is, objects of class "annotation"
, are character vectors with all
their elements named. Only one method is defined for this subclass of character vectors,
a method for show
, that shows the annotation in a nicely formatted way. Annotations
of an object can be obtained via the function annotation(x)
and can be set via
annotation(x)<-value
.
Elements of an annotation with names "description"
and "wording"
have a special
meaning. The first kind can be obtained and set via description(x)
and
description(x)<-value
, the second kind can be obtained via wording(x)
and
wording(x)<-value
. "description"
elements are used in way the “variable labels”
are used in SPSS and Stata. "wording"
elements of annotation objects are meant to
contain the question wording of a questionnaire item represented by an "item"
objects. These elements of annotations are treated in a special way in the output of the
coodbook
function.
Usage¶
annotation(x)
## S4 method for signature 'ANY'
annotation(x)
## S4 method for signature 'item'
annotation(x)
## S4 method for signature 'data.set'
annotation(x)
annotation(x)<-value
## S4 method for signature 'ANY,character'
annotation(x)<-value
## S4 method for signature 'ANY,annotation'
annotation(x)<-value
## S4 method for signature 'item,annotation'
annotation(x)<-value
## S4 method for signature 'vector,annotation'
annotation(x)<-value
description(x)
description(x)<-value
wording(x)
wording(x)<-value
## S4 method for signature 'data.set'
description(x)
## S4 method for signature 'importer'
description(x)
Arguments¶
x
-
an object
value
-
a character or annotation object
Value¶
annotation(x)
returns an object of class "annotation"
, which is a named
character. description(x)
and wording(x)
each usually return a character string.
If description(x)
is applied to a data.set
or an importer
object, however, a
character vector is returned, which is named after the variables in the data set or the
external file.
Examples¶
vote <- sample(c(1,2,3,8,9,97,99),size=30,replace=TRUE)
labels(vote) <- c(Conservatives = 1,
Labour = 2,
"Liberal Democrats" = 3,
"Don't know" = 8,
"Answer refused" = 9,
"Not applicable" = 97,
"Not asked in survey" = 99
)
missing.values(vote) <- c(97,99)
description(vote) <- "Vote intention"
wording(vote) <- "If a general election would take place next tuesday,
the candidate of which party would you vote for?"
annotation(vote)
description:
Vote intention
wording:
If a general election would take place next tuesday, the candidate of which
party would you
vote for?
annotation(vote)["Remark"] <- "This is not a real questionnaire item, of course ..."
codebook(vote)
====================================================================================================
vote 'Vote intention'
"If a general election would take place next tuesday, the candidate of which
party would you
vote for?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Storage mode: double
Measurement: nominal
Missing values: 97, 99
Values and labels N Valid Total
1 'Conservatives' 4 18.2 13.3
2 'Labour' 5 22.7 16.7
3 'Liberal Democrats' 5 22.7 16.7
8 'Don't know' 3 13.6 10.0
9 'Answer refused' 5 22.7 16.7
97 M 'Not applicable' 2 6.7
99 M 'Not asked in survey' 6 20.0
Remark:
This is not a real questionnaire item, of course ...