Adding Annotations to Objects
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.
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 replacement method for signature 'ANY,character' annotation(x)<-value ## S4 replacement method for signature 'ANY,annotation' annotation(x)<-value ## S4 replacement method for signature 'item,annotation' annotation(x)<-value ## S4 replacement 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)
x |
an object |
value |
a character or annotation object |
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.
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)
annotation(vote)["Remark"] <- "This is not a real questionnaire item, of course ..."
codebook(vote)Please choose more modern alternatives, such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.