How to Extract and Modify Attributes of a Table Using R

Introduction

Each built-in Q table stores attribute parameters which can be called via R using the attributes() function, such as the base, filters, spans, and statistics shown. When using these tables in R, sometimes you may want to modify some of these parameters or extract some of the information for a completely different type of output in R. This can be useful when you want to rename a column of a SUMMARY table in an output that is reformatted or if you want to create your own statistic based on a custom calculation.

For example this table:

Has attributes including the following (and more):

Requirements

• A table. These examples will use the table above named table.Preferred.cola.
• An R output.

Method - Extracting Information

In this example, we will extract the filter name applied to the table.

1. In the R Output, paste the below under Properties > R CODE:

mytable=table.Preferred.cola 
attributes(mytable)

2. Check OUTPUT > Show raw R output.

3. Click Calculate to see the printout of attributes available for extraction. Locate the filter label in the output and note what it is called:

4. Add a line of code using the attr() function which will extract the filter.labels from the table and call it filter:

filter = attr(mytable,"filter.labels")

Returns:

5. You can incorporate this into text boxes output to your PowerPoint by using the paste function like so:

paste0("Filters used in this section: ",filter)

Returns:

Note. You can use the APPEARANCE section in the object inspector to further style the font in the export.

Method - Changing the Statistic

1. In the R Output, paste the below under Properties > R CODE which will center the percentages around the average:

mytable=table.Preferred.cola 
mytable = mytable - Average(mytable)

4. We want to change the statistic name shown in the first column to be something more descriptive. We can use the attr() function on the left side of the = sign to change this attribute for the table and call the final table result using:

attr(mytable,"statistic") = "Diff from Avg"
mytable

5. Press the % symbol in the toolbar to add percentages to the numbers on the table and the table will display as expected.

Next

How to Work with Data in R

How to Work with Nested Banners and Spans in R Tables

How to Extract Data from a Multiple Column Table with Nested Data

How to Combine Tables with Multiple Statistics Using R

How to Extract Information from an R Object