Is is possible to convert a dataframe object to a tribble constructor?

Question

I have data that looks like this:

library(tidyverse)
df <- tibble(
    x = c(0, 179, 342, 467, 705, 878, 1080, 1209, 1458, 1639, 1805, 2000, 2121, 2339, 2462, 2676, 
      2857, 3049, 3227, 3403, 3583, 3651, 4009, 4034, 4151, 4194, 4512, 4523, 4679, 5789), 
    y = c(4.7005, 4.8598, 5.0876, 5.0938, 5.3891, 5.6095, 5.8777, 6.0064, 6.3063, 6.4723, 6.6053, 
          6.8145, 6.9078, 7.1701, 7.2633, 7.3865, 7.5766, 7.644, 7.8018, 7.9505, 8.0974, 8.1937, 
          8.2391, 8.294, 8.3143, 8.3452, 8.5092, 8.5172, 8.5993, 9.0275))

Is it possible to convert my dataframe/tibble object to a tribble "constructor"?

I'm looking for something like dput, but more lightweight and specifically for dataframes.

Answer 1

I think mc_tribble is a better name, and it looks like you can just condense it to:

mc_tribble <- function(indf, indents = 4, mdformat = TRUE) {
  name <- as.character(substitute(indf))
  name <- name[length(name)]

  meat <- capture.output(write.csv(indf, quote = TRUE, row.names = FALSE))
  meat <- paste0(
    paste(rep(" ", indents), collapse = ""),
    c(paste(sprintf("~%s", names(indf)), collapse = ", "),
      meat[-1]))

  if (mdformat) meat <- paste0("    ", meat)
  obj <- paste(name, " <- tribble(\n", paste(meat, collapse = ",\n"), ")", sep = "")
  if (mdformat) cat(paste0("    ", obj)) else cat(obj)
}

Try it out:

short_iris <- head(iris)

mc_tribble(short_iris)

Improvements:

• Shorter code
• Captures the name of the "tibble"
• Has an argument for indenting
• Has an argument for conveniently adding 4 spaces for pasting on Stack Overflow
• Sounds more tasty

---

I've added this to my "SOfun" package. You can install it with:

source("http://news.mrdwab.com/install_github.R")
install_github("mrdwab/overflow-mrdwab") # for writeClip -- plus it's awesome
install_github("mrdwab/SOfun")

Usage is then simply:

library(SOfun)
mc_tribble(short_iris)

Advantages:

• Now copies the output to your clipboard (if you have "overflow" installed)
• Even more affordable than before!

Answer 2

datapasta::dpasta() should be suitable. Output from your example:

dpasta(df)
tibble::tribble(
    ~x,     ~y,
     0, 4.7005,
   179, 4.8598,
   342, 5.0876,
   467, 5.0938,
   705, 5.3891,
   878, 5.6095,
  1080, 5.8777,
  1209, 6.0064,
  1458, 6.3063,
  1639, 6.4723,
  1805, 6.6053,
  2000, 6.8145,
  2121, 6.9078,
  2339, 7.1701,
  2462, 7.2633,
  2676, 7.3865,
  2857, 7.5766,
  3049,  7.644,
  3227, 7.8018,
  3403, 7.9505,
  3583, 8.0974,
  3651, 8.1937,
  4009, 8.2391,
  4034,  8.294,
  4151, 8.3143,
  4194, 8.3452,
  4512, 8.5092,
  4523, 8.5172,
  4679, 8.5993,
  5789, 9.0275
  )

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/datapasta/index.html https://github.com/MilesMcBain/datapasta