different behavior for character vs. numeric data, when using named vector for labels argument of set_labels()? about sjlabelled

[strengejacke]

I just submitted an update to CRAN, and this resolved issue should be in the official CRAN release.

[jmobrien]

Just following up about this after a while. I'd like to use the tool more in my workflow, but as it stands I'm just having to set things up manually.

I still don't understand the seemingly inconsistent behavior when labeling numeric vs. character data types. Looking at the code this behavior appears to be intentional, with the linked section doing the flip if things match (i.e., string data is given string labels).

If there's a mismatch because the labels are given numeric elements with string names, it ignores those and throws a warning, like so:

  example <- sample(c("one", "two", "three", "four"), 40, replace = TRUE)
  example <- set_labels(dummy, labels = c("one" = 1 , "two" = 2, "three" = 3 , "four" = 3))

  example   # unlabelled               

However, a labels argument structured like the above would already be improper based on the guidance in the help docs for set_labels.

In fact, it even looks like a similar mistake would be fixed if it were made when labeling a numeric vector, i.e. here

Is there a purpose to this behavior I'm not understanding? Perhaps something to do with Haven, etc.?

[strengejacke]

I think there must have been a reason to do this, but I can't remember. I changed the behaviour, so it is now in line with the default haven behaviour:

charvec <- sjlabelled::set_labels(
  c("one", "two", "three", "four"), 
  labels = c(a = "one", b = "two", c = "three", d = "four")
)

charvec2 <-  haven::labelled(
  c("one", "two", "three", "four"), 
  labels = c(a = "one", b = "two", c = "three", d = "four")
)

charvec
#> [1] "one"   "two"   "three" "four" 
#> attr(,"labels")
#>       a       b       c       d 
#>   "one"   "two" "three"  "four"
charvec2
#> <labelled<character>[4]>
#> [1] one   two   three four 
#> 
#> Labels:
#>  value label
#>    one     a
#>    two     b
#>  three     c
#>   four     d

sjlabelled::get_labels(charvec, value = "p")
#> [1] "[four] d"  "[one] a"   "[three] c" "[two] b"
sjlabelled::get_labels(charvec2, value = "p")
#> [1] "[four] d"  "[one] a"   "[three] c" "[two] b"

^{Created on 2021-05-11 by the reprex package (v2.0.0)}

[jmobrien]

Excellent, thanks for your help on this.

And thanks for all your work on this package overall!

[jmobrien]

Just a small follow-up on this--Is there a plan to release a new version of the package CRAN any time soon? Just asking so I can plan--much of my work is done on a managed server, and the policy is generally only to use official CRAN packages.