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String Standardization

Source: R/doc_string_standardization.R
string_standardization.Rd

Prior to matching raw and reference datasets, one might wish to standardize the strings within the match columns to account for differences in case, punctuation, etc.

By default, this standardization is performed with function string_std, which implements four transformations:

  1. standardize case (base::tolower)

  2. remove sequences of non-alphanumeric characters at start or end of string

  3. replace remaining sequences of non-alphanumeric characters with "_"

  4. remove diacritics (stringi::stri_trans_general)

  5. (optional) convert roman numerals (I, II, ..., XLIX) to arabic (1, 2, ..., 49)

Alternatively, the user may provide any function that takes a vector of strings and returns a vector of transformed strings. To omit any transformation, set argument std_fn = NULL.

Note that the standardized versions of the match columns are never returned. They are used only during matching, and then removed prior to the return.