Examples
I don’t know how many times I searched my old scripts, especially for a ggplot code snippet, but I have forgotten the details about this little piece of worl. For this reason, I started to create this package. CopyCat comes with a small data set (CopyCatCode) that contains minimal examples of several cheat sheet examples that run without further ado. For example, let’s have a look at code examples for the ggplot2 package. The CopyCatCode data provides the package name, the function, and the code of a minimal example:
## load library and provide a data frame
library(copycat)
CopyCatCode %>%
filter(package == "ggplot2") %>%
arrange(fct)
#> # A tibble: 43 × 3
#> package fct code
#> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 ggplot2 annotate "ggplot(mtcars, aes(x=mpg)) + \r\n geom_histogram(co…
#> 2 ggplot2 facet_grid "ggplot(mtcars, aes(hp, mpg)) + \r\n geom_blank() + \r…
#> 3 ggplot2 facet_wrap "ggplot(mtcars, aes(hp, mpg)) + \r\n geom_blank() + \r…
#> 4 ggplot2 geom_abline "ggplot(mpg, aes(cty, hwy))+\r\n geom_point()+\r\n ge…
#> 5 ggplot2 geom_area "ggplot(mpg, aes(hwy))+\r\n geom_area(stat = \"bin\")"
#> 6 ggplot2 geom_bar "ggplot(data=mpg, aes(x=class)) + geom_bar()"
#> 7 ggplot2 geom_bin_2d "ggplot(diamonds, aes(carat, price))+ geom_bin2d(binwid…
#> 8 ggplot2 geom_boxplot "ggplot(diamonds, aes(x=color, y=carat, fill=color)) +\…
#> 9 ggplot2 geom_col "ggplot(diamonds, aes(x=color, y=carat)) +\r\n geom_co…
#> 10 ggplot2 geom_contour "ggplot(faithfuld, aes(waiting, eruptions, z = density)…
#> # … with 33 more rowsLet’s say you cannot remember how pivot_longer from the tidyr package works. Just search for the corresponding code snippet via the copycat() function, it searches the code snippet and copies the returned code to your clipboard. To see which code is returned, use the corresponding copycat_code() function.
# copycat("pivot_longer") saves the returned code to the clipboad
#>[1] "🐈 Your code: relig_income %>% tidyr::pivot_longer(!religion, names_to = #>'income', values_to = 'count')"
# copycat_code() let us inspect what the function returned
copycat_code("pivot_longer")
#> [1] "🐈 Your code: pivot_longer(table4a, cols = 2:3, names_to =\"year\",\r\n values_to = \"cases\")"Since the code is based on implemented data – as all examples listed in CopyCat – you can see how a function works by pasting it into your console. Alternatively, set the run option to TRUE and copycat() sends the code to your console.
copycat("pivot_longer", run = T )
relig_income %>%
pivot_longer(!religion, names_to = 'income', values_to = 'count')
#> # A tibble: 180 × 3
#> religion income count
#> <chr> <chr> <dbl>
#> 1 Agnostic <$10k 27
#> 2 Agnostic $10-20k 34
#> 3 Agnostic $20-30k 60
#> 4 Agnostic $30-40k 81
#> 5 Agnostic $40-50k 76
#> 6 Agnostic $50-75k 137
#> 7 Agnostic $75-100k 122
#> 8 Agnostic $100-150k 109
#> 9 Agnostic >150k 84
#> 10 Agnostic Don't know/refused 96
#> # … with 170 more rowsOf course, the minimal examples will only run if the package has been loaded and most of the time we know the package name. However, sometimes we have to look up the package name if we do not use a function often. The copycat_package() function returns the corresponding package name and sends the code library(...) directly to your console. The copycat_package() function copies the code also to the clipboard, since you want to insert it into your script as well.
#search for a package name, copies the load and loads the library
copycat_package("pivot_longer")
#>[1] [1] "🐈 Mission accomplished, loaded and copied library: tidyr"If you add typos by accident, if you are not sure whether the function is written in small or large caps, you might be lucky and a similar match is found in the data.
#typos and other mistakes
copycat_package("bivot")
#> [1] "Did you mean pivot_longer from the tidyr package?"
#> [2] "Did you mean pivot_wider from the tidyr package?"Unfortunately, this only works if a match is found at all.
copycat("bivatasa")
#>[1] "💩 Sooorry, I've got no idea what you are looking for!"Github
CopyCat can also be connected to your Github repository to copy one of your old scripts. First, you have to setup the Github account details, that CopyCat needs to search. Provide the name of the author, the repository, and the branch name.
git_setup <- c(author = "edgar-treischl",
repository = "Graphs",
branch = "main")The copycat_gitsearch() function uses the Github API to search within your repository and shows all R scripts that live within the repository.
copycat_gitsearch()
#> # A tibble: 9 × 1
#> git_scripts
#> <chr>
#> 1 R/anscombe_quartet.R
#> 2 R/boxplot_illustration.R
#> 3 R/boxplot_pitfalls.R
#> 4 R/data_joins.R
#> 5 R/datasaurus.R
#> 6 R/gapminder.R
#> 7 R/pacman.R
#> 8 R/simpson.R
#> 9 R/ucb_admission.RThe copycat_git() function copies the code of a script to your clipboard.
copycat_git("datasaurus")
#>[1] "🐈 Mission accomplished!"And opycat_gitplot("datasaurus") sends the code to your console.
Help files and vignettes
Often, all we need is code that runs to see how a functions work. For this reason, CopyCat to search within the R help files and vignettes, but returns only the code listed in the vignette or the examples of the help file. The copycat_helpsearch() function list all help files of a package:
copycat_helpsearch("tidyr")
#> [1] "billboard" "check_pivot_spec" "chop"
#> [4] "complete" "construction" "deprecated-se"
#> [7] "drop_na" "expand" "expand_grid"
#> [10] "extract" "extract_numeric" "fill"
#> [13] "fish_encounters" "full_seq" "gather"
#> [16] "hoist" "nest" "nest_legacy"
#> [19] "pack" "pipe" "pivot_longer"
#> [22] "pivot_longer_spec" "pivot_wider" "pivot_wider_spec"
#> [25] "reexports" "relig_income" "replace_na"
#> [28] "separate" "separate_rows" "smiths"
#> [31] "spread" "table1" "tidyr-package"
#> [34] "tidyr_legacy" "tidyr_tidy_select" "uncount"
#> [37] "unite" "us_rent_income" "who"
#> [40] "world_bank_pop"And the copycat_help() function copies the examples section of a help file to your clipboard. Again, the copycat_helpcode function return only the code to see what we have copied.
#copycat_help() saves examples of the help files into your clipboard
#copycat_help("tidyr", "drop_na")
copycat_helpcode("tidyr", "drop_na")
#> [1] "#Extracted examples:"
#> [2] " library(dplyr)"
#> [3] " df <- tibble(x = c(1, 2, NA), y = c(\"a\", NA, \"b\"))"
#> [4] " df %>% drop_na()"
#> [5] " df %>% drop_na(x)"
#> [6] " "
#> [7] " vars <- \"y\""
#> [8] " df %>% drop_na(x, any_of(vars))"
#> [9] " "The same function exist to search for and copy code from vignettes. The copycat_vigsearch() returns all available vignettes of a package.
copycat_vigsearch("tidyr")
#> [1] "in-packages.R" "nest.R" "pivot.R" "programming.R"
#> [5] "rectangle.R" "tidy-data.R"And copycat_vignette() copies the script.
copycat_vignette("tidyr", "pivot")
#> "😎 copied that!"To copy smaller code chunks to your clipboard is fine. Help files and vignettes are much longer. Therefore, we may want to create a new file and paste the code into a new file. The copycat_helpscript()create a new R script and copies the examples of the help file into that script, while copycat_vigscript() does the same with the code from the vignette.
copycat_helpscript("tidyr", "pivot")
copycat_vigscript("tidyr", "pivot")CopyCat has started as a personal package. Feel free to use it or manage your own code snippets with it. Just add your data frame with the same variable names of the small example data (CopyCatCode) and CopyCat handles your own snippets.