REDCap Select and Rename — redcap_import

This function loops through all the variable names of a data set and lets the user compare them with the variable names set up in REDCap.
The REDCap data dictionary can either be directly provided or downloaded from the REDCap project by providing an API token and matching URL.
For variables with matching names in REDCap, the function can be run so that they will be automatically selected without renaming. If auto-selecting is turned off, the user can decide to not select these variables at all or to select and rename them.
For variables without matching names in REDCap, the function can be run so that they will be automatically skipped. If auto-skipping is turned off, the user can decide to select these variables anyway (helpful e.g. when they need to be split for checkbox fields) or to select and rename them.
The function returns a data frame with the selected/renamed variables, writes an overview csv-table, and the executed code to a txt-file for copy-pasting and adjusting/reusing.

Usage

redcap_import_select(
  import_data,
  dict = NULL,
  rc_token,
  rc_url,
  forms = NULL,
  start_var = 1,
  auto_match = TRUE,
  auto_skip_nomatch = FALSE,
  no_match_suggestion = 0.5,
  skip_intro = FALSE,
  continue = TRUE,
  suppress_txt = FALSE,
  log = TRUE,
  log_code = "redcap_import_select_code.txt",
  log_table = "redcap_import_select_overview.csv",
  log_unused = TRUE,
  wait = 2
)

Arguments

import_data: Data frame to be imported
dict: Data dictionary (e.g. as downloaded from REDCap or via redcap_export_meta(rc_token, rc_url)$meta). If not supplied, this will be downloaded from the API using rc_token and rc_url.
rc_token: REDCap API token
rc_url: Link to REDCap API
forms: Character vector of the forms as set up in REDCap of which variable names will be displayed. Default = all forms.
start_var: Define in which column of the import data the loop should start. Default = 1.
auto_match: If TRUE, variables with matching names will be automatically selected. If FALSE, the user can decide if the variable shall be imported or not. Default = TRUE.
auto_skip_nomatch: If TRUE, variables without matching names will be automatically skipped. If FALSE, the user can decide to select and rename the variable. Default = FALSE.
no_match_suggestion: For variables without matching names, similar names in REDCap will be suggested. With this numeric similarity index between 0 (no similarity at all = shows all items) and 1 (identical = shows only perfect matches) the number of suggestions can be adjusted. Type '0' to turn off similarity suggestions. Default = 0.5.
skip_intro: If TRUE, the introduction messages will be skipped. Default = FALSE
continue: If TRUE, a question to continue will be asked before moving along the loop. Default = TRUE.
suppress_txt: If TRUE, all text output will be suppressed (not recommended). Default = FALSE.
log: If TRUE, an overview csv-table, and a txt-file are stored in the working directory. Default = TRUE.
log_code: Name and location of the txt-file containing the executed code. Default = redcap_import_select_code.txt.
log_table: Name and location of the csv.table containing the tabular overview. Default = redcap_import_select_overview.csv.
log_unused: IF TRUE, all REDCap variable names that have not been matched with the data dictionary will be listed in the end of the csv-table. Default = TRUE.
wait: Allows you to set the latency time between the steps. Default = 2s.

Value

Data frame with selected/renamed data. Log-file with executed code. CSV-table with overview.

Examples

# data(importdemo_data)
# data(importdemo_dict)
# redcap_import_select(importdemo_data, importdemo_dict)

# if using local data:
# token <- "xxxxx"
# url <- "xxxxx"
# file <- "data.csv"
# redcap_import_select(file, rc_token = token, rc_url = url)