R Observatory: Metrics for cat2cat version 0.6.1

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

cat2cat

0.6.1Package record

Handling an Inconsistently Coded Categorical Variable in a Longitudinal Dataset

0packages depend

4.2Kdownloads / year

99.7%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Maciej NasinskiCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗

Unifying an inconsistently coded categorical variable between two different time points in accordance with a mapping table. The main rule is to replicate the observation if it could be assigned to a few categories. Then using frequencies or statistical methods to approximate the probabilities of being assigned to each of them. This procedure was invented and implemented in the paper by 'Nasinski', 'Majchrowska', and 'Broniatowska' (2020) doi:10.24425/cejeme.2020.134747.

Changes in 0.6.1

This release incorporates feedback from the PhD dissertation reviewers: dr hab. Andrzej Dudek, dr hab. Joanna Landmesser-Rusek, and dr hab. Paweł Andrzej Strzelecki.

New features

New occup_panel dataset - a rotational panel covering 2009Q1--2010Q4 - used to illustrate id_var direct matching and to exercise the panel-data code path in tests.
Naive Bayes ("nb") added to the supported ML methods, via e1071 (Suggests).
summary_c2c() now supports both lm and glm, adds input/shape validation (df_old/df_new, coefficient table checks), and reports the reference distribution used for p-values (t or normal). Added edge-case tests and aligned regression/panel vignette examples with current summary_c2c() output and fixed-effects inference guidance.
cat2cat_ml_run() now reports the Brier score and mean P(true class) in addition to accuracy. A proper scoring rule matters because cat2cat weights are *probabilities*, not classifications - a model can be accurate and still be poorly calibrated.
All stopifnot() assertions now carry descriptive messages, so failures point the user at the offending argument instead of printing the raw expression.
cat2cat() ML fallback is now configurable via ml$on_fail ("freq", "naive", "na", "error") with optional warning control via ml$fail_warn. Failed ML weights are now explicitly handled according to this policy instead of always silently falling back to frequency weights.
cat2cat() ML now accepts factor features in addition to numeric/logical: factor columns listed in ml$features are automatically one-hot encoded using the union of levels observed in ml$data and the target period.

Documentation

Vignettes reorganised into three clearer guides: *Get Started*, *Choosing Weights and Validating ML*, and *Advanced Workflows*. The goal is a cleaner reader path: core concepts first, method choice second, advanced workflows third.
*Get Started* now focuses on the two-period workflow, core assumptions, and the value added of cat2cat for group-level longitudinal analysis, with sharper pointers to the more advanced guides.

Show all changes in 0.6.1Hide the rest of the changes in 0.6.1

*Choosing Weights and Validating ML* is now structured as a decision guide: understanding weight assumptions, checking robustness across methods, validating ML against naive/frequency baselines, and handling failed ML predictions.
*Advanced Workflows* now collects ML setup, multi-period chaining, rotational panels with id_var, aggregated-data workflows, hierarchical-code mappings, and regression/inference after harmonisation into one better-structured advanced reference.
Added a *When cat2cat won't help* section distinguishing hard blockers (no mapping table, unobserved category) from method-specific limitations with available workarounds.
Corrected the $R^2$ guidance: ordinary $R^2$ is preserved in neutral replication cases when replicated copies keep the same response/covariates and weights sum back to the source observation; adjusted $R^2$, AIC, and BIC require original-scale degrees-of-freedom care, and fit statistics with harmonised-category covariates are conditional on the chosen weights.
Roxygen for cat2cat() and cat2cat_agg() trimmed - argument documentation kept, conceptual material moved to the vignettes where it belongs.

Bug fixes

Fixed the nomnoml diagram that previously mislabelled the base/target sides under forward mapping.
Fixed get_freqs() for r-devel/R CMD check: replaced as.data.frame(table(...)) conversion with direct data.frame(input = names(tab), Freq = as.integer(tab)) construction to avoid failures when NA appears in table names (row names contain missing values).

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

R (CRAN)pak (dev)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("cat2cat", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE))
  install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
pak::pak("Polkas/cat2cat")

Development version from Polkas/cat2cat. Installs pak first if it is not already available.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-cat2cat

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled. We list this channel from recorded r2u download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-cat2cat

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-cat2cat

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed). We list this channel from recorded autoCRAN download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

CRAN check page ↗

Slowest check: 10.8 min · r-oldrel-macos-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK13 OK2026-06-09
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK13 OK2026-05-09

Show 2 earlier changesHide 2 earlier changes

ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-05-03
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 0.6.1

README· In the repository, left out of the releaseVignettesYes · 3 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 0.6.1Citation fileYes · cites a publicationWebsiteYes · pkgdown

Help pages: 22 (5 internal)
Examples that run: 67%10 run in a plain check · 1 only when donttest examples are enabled (R CMD check --as-cran) · 4 never run
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 80%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 0%

Vignettes (3)

How these are measured

Downloads

4.2K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #6,184 · ~11/day · ~346/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

52730 days

1.4K90 days

4.2K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on191 r2u9 autocran

How downloads are counted

Repository

polkas/cat2cat ↗Account: Polkas

5Stars

1Forks

7Open issues

0Open PRs

4Releases

120Commits

1Commit identities

factorcategoriespanelencodingencodingstransitionsmappingsmapping

License file reads as GPL-2.0 · 120 commits · Last activity 2026-05-17 · Default branch at 0.6.1.9000, ahead of CRAN 0.6.1 (checked 2026-10-22)

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 88%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 39
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 3

Stars over time

2025-07-18 · 52026-07-07 · 5

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

10 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 7 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/polkas/cat2cat on 2026-10-22.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

The R CMD check workflow runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, and on R-devel

Governance and community (1)

Contributing guide

Docs source (3)

pkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-05-17 · The repository has a site deploy workflow

pkgdown site last built 2026-05-17

Coverage (1)

Coverage reporting

Show all practicesHide 3 practices

CRAN release process (1)

cran-comments.md

Research and citation (1)

codemeta.json

Lint, format, editor (1)

RStudio project

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (2026-10-20)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

12 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing cat2cat adds no packages beyond those that come with R.

Depends (1)

R >= 3.6

Imports (1)

MASS

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (12)

caret dplyr e1071 fixest forcats knitr magrittr randomForest rmarkdown spelling testthat tidyr

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

0direct

0indirect

Nothing depends on this yet.

How these are counted

Code & Tests

Datasets

People & History

People (1)

Maciej Nasinski

Author, Maintainer since 0.1.3 (2020)

Releases (13)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

0.6.1Latest
record
2026-05-17 · current release · diff ↗
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
0.4.7
record
2024-01-22 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
cat2cat_ml_run
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
0.4.6
record
2023-02-01 · diff ↗
0.4.5
record
2022-09-25 · diff ↗
0.4.4
record
2022-08-31 · diff ↗
0.4.2
record
2022-08-05 · diff ↗
0.4.1
record
2022-06-08 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
dummy_c2c
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
0.3.3
record
2022-03-11 · diff ↗
0.3.1
record
2022-02-06 · diff ↗
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
0.2.1
record
2021-03-27 · diff ↗

Show 4 earlier eventsHide 4 earlier events

0.2.0
record
2020-12-08 · diff ↗ ·
removed 2 exports
cross_cat2cat, prune_cat2cat

added 3 exports
cross_c2c, plot_c2c, prune_c2c
0.1.7
record
2020-11-29 · diff ↗
0.1.3
record
2020-09-22
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24

Package metadata

First published: 2020-09-22
Total releases: 13 / 6 yrs
License: GPL (>= 2) | file LICENSE OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 3.6
Bundled data: 2.2 MB / 6 files
Download size: 2.4 MB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' entry:

citation("cat2cat")

The package provides a citation file, so citation() returns the authors' own entry.

It points to 10.1016/j.softx.2023.101525.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for cat2cat version 0.6.1 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-24. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-24, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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