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Automatically Detect Variable Types in a Dataset

Source: R/synthetic_data_perturbation.R
detect_variable_types.Rd

Analyzes a data frame to automatically classify variables as continuous or categorical, and returns a subset of the data with specified variables excluded.

Usage

detect_variable_types(data, max_unique_for_cat = 10, exclude_vars = NULL)

Arguments

data

A data frame to analyze

max_unique_for_cat

Integer. Maximum number of unique values for a numeric variable to be considered categorical. Default is 10.

exclude_vars

Character vector of variable names to exclude from both classification and the returned dataset (e.g., ID variables, timestamps). Default is NULL.

Value

A list containing:

continuous_vars

Character vector of variable names classified as continuous

cat_vars

Character vector of variable names classified as categorical

data_subset

Data frame with exclude_vars columns removed

Details

The function classifies variables using the following rules:

  • Numeric variables with more than max_unique_for_cat unique values are classified as continuous

  • Numeric variables with max_unique_for_cat or fewer unique values are classified as categorical

  • Factor, character, and logical variables are always classified as categorical

  • Variables listed in exclude_vars are omitted from classification and removed from the returned dataset