Wrapping base R reshape for ease-of-use

Question

It is a truth universally acknowledged that R\'s base reshape command is speedy and powerful but has miserable syntax. I have therefore written a quick wrapper around it wh

Answer 1

Perhaps for those who are lazy and don't like to type the variable names, you can add the following to the head of your function:

  if (is.numeric(id) == 1) {
    id = colnames(data)[id]
  } else if (is.numeric(id) == 0) {
    id = id
  }

  if (is.numeric(vary) == 1) {
    vary = colnames(data)[vary]
  } else if (is.numeric(vary) == 0) {
    vary = vary
  }

Then, following with your examples, you can use the following shorthand:

reshapeasy(x.wide, direction="long", id=1, sep="_", vary="id")
reshapeasy(x.long, direction="wide", id=6, vary=1)

(I know, it might not be good practice since the code might be less readable or less easily understandable by someone later on, but it does happen frequently.)